


Heart of the Hoard

by firefright



Series: 100 Prompts [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Accidental Soulbonding, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bathing/Washing, Consensual Possession, Courtship, Dream Sex, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:37:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7136186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason is a knight on a mission to save a captive young woman from a cruel and vicious dragon. However, when Jason reaches the keep the girl is kept in, it quickly becomes clear that not all is as it seems with his quest. For starters, Lady Timothea is actually <em>Lord</em> Timothy, and - as Jason soon discovers - he's hardly a prisoner in his tower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skalidra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalidra/gifts).



> Hello! Here's the second of the stories I'm doing for my [100 Prompts](http://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/promptschallenge) challenge, this one is based off number 54. 'Tower', which led to the immediate thought of the 'princess in the tower' with some tweaks. Please enjoy! XD

The journey has been arduous, long and altogether exhausting. 

Jason's path had taken him across hill and vale, river and brook, through a forest so deep and tangled with undergrowth that he had been forced to draw his sword at times and use it as one would a common woodcutter's axe to make his way forwards - an action his father would have had his hide for, if only he knew where Jason was now.

In hindsight, if Jason had known how deep into the wilderness his quest would take him then he might have had second thoughts about embarking upon it on the first place, no matter how badly he required the reward of gold promised if he should succeed. It was a fact that being a hedge knight did not pay altogether well, but it was the path that Jason had chosen as a second son, and unless he felt crawling back to his noble father for coin (an inconceivable notion) it meant he would take any job he could get, so long as it did not compromise his own skewed sense of honour.

Jobs like this one, for example.

At the outset, the mission had sounded easy; find the tower, save the girl, then return her to her stinking rich parents. After which Jason could take the monetary reward while turning down the inevitable marriage proposal - usually easy enough once those sorts of people laid eyes on him, so long as he didn't mention his relation to Bruce's name - before 'gently' suggesting that Lord and Lady Drake be a bit more open minded to letting their daughter choose her own husband in the future, lest they wish to find her disappearing on them once more.

Jason has no patience for seeing anyone forced into anything against their will, doubly so for marital misery.

Then an old crone in the last village he passed through before leaving civilisation had seen fit to mention the dragon.

It didn't surprise him at this point in his adventuring career. There was almost always a dragon involved in these ventures, and if not a dragon then a griffin or some other terrible creature. Jason had even come to blows with a wicked witch or two in his time. Always _something_ monstrous and terrible and dark to explain why none before him had managed to save the day and rescue the damsel in distress. He was more exasperated by the revelation than anything.

What the fascination was between the creatures and keeping fair young maidens locked away in their keeps, Jason couldn't rightly say, only that the preoccupation went a long way to keeping him in coin, and therefore he should not complain about it.

Shouldn't, but often did, because Jason wasn't the type to accept the bad that life dealt him just because he knew it _could_ , potentially, be worse.

Which leads him back to his current problem, as he continues to study the tower before him from the covered safety of the treeline.

It's an impressive sight to say the least; a round-based marvel of engineering that shoots straight up out of the ground and reaches a good two hundred feet into the sky. Jason would give everything he has, including the clothes off his back, to say that magic had been involved in its construction; not least because after three days of scouting out the area he has yet to find anything so mundane as a door to enter the building by. 

(He really hates magic, even more so his own complete lack of talent for it.)

It doesn't look much like the hold of any dragon he's encountered before either, Jason thinks, and that observation would almost be enough to make him dismiss that part of the tale outright, if not for the scorch marks and clawed furrows that mark the open ground around the tower's base. He's seen damage like that before, around the ruins of still smouldering towns or the openings to the caves where dragons usually preferred to make their homes.

There's no bodies though; no torched skeletons or melted armour, but that could easily be because the beast ate them all and shit the remains out elsewhere. Jason had found some old horse tracks though, as well as a couple ragged pennons marked with the heraldry of houses he didn't recognise torn and tangled in the branches of the surrounding trees. Disconcerting to say the least, but well, that was part of the business. Jason didn't come out here to play it safe.

After three days of sitting and waiting, Jason's seen no sign of the beast. No sign of the princess either in her ivory tower (actually made of granite, but ivory sounded more pleasing to the ear); not even when he used the spyglass that an elven-blooded friend of his had gifted him back on his last nameday to peer closer at the latticed windows. Boredom had set in yesterday, and today, realising he's starting to run low on his food supplies beyond what he can hunt and forage in the forest, the feeling has only worsened.

Jason can't wait here forever. So, after some consideration, he makes an executive decision to risk climbing the tower. If the dragon decides to finally show its ugly face while he's up there then he'll just have to improvise, he's good at that.

Jason waits for the early dawn light before starting to make his ascent, thanking whatever power there is watching over him that his older brother was born in a circus, and that he had taught his climbing skills to Jason when they were a young squire and page respectively, running about the expanse of their father's castle, exploring it by buttress and rooftop once they grew bored with using the stairs and inner passages. It's a skill he needs every inch of, for the tower has far less decorative masonry running up its walls than his former home, requiring Jason to be ever more careful about how he wedges his hands and feet between the narrow gaps in the stone where the mortar has worn away.

Once he reaches the lowest window, about a hundred feet up the tower's side, he can crack it open with his knife and climb through. It's a task easier said than done with all his gear strapped to his back; his sword and his flintlock pistols, but Jason's a large man, and strong, he bears the strain well enough. Not even the heat of the sun and the sweat pouring down his back under his clothes is enough to break his concentration.

"You do know I'm not a girl, right?"

 _That_ however, might be.

"What?" Jason blinks, trying to shake his shaggy hair out of his eyes as he squints upwards against the sunlight.

There's a sigh from the closest window, now only ten feet above him. It's open he realises, and then someone leans out. "I said, I'm not a girl. That's why you're here, isn't it, to rescue the girl?"

"Uh," Clinging perilously to the side of a sheer tower is not the best place to be having a conversation. Jason gulps as a brisk wind tugs at his cloak and threatens to dislodge him as he tries to get a better look at the man talking down at him.

 _Pretty_ is Jason's first thought, surprising him in itself. The man - boy, is more accurate - has a heart-shaped face and high cheekbones, tapering down into a sharply pointed chin, with a narrow nose and shapely lips to fill the space between. His eyes, a pale grey blue, are framed by the shadowed fall of long inky black hair around his face. 

Not a girl then, just nice enough to look at to be mistaken for one at first glance.

He rests his chin on the palm of his hand as he watches Jason struggle up the side of his tower, wearing a disinterested expression on his comely face.

"Wait, so, you're _not_ Timothea Drake?" Jason asks, finding a good place to stop and cling where he's not apt to lose his grip at any moment and plummet to his death.

If he's wasted his time the past three days around the wrong tower...

The boy groans at his question, covering his face with his palm. "It's Timo _thy_ Drake, actually. You're not the first one to make that mistake."

"What, were your parents that unobservant when your mother squeezed you out?"

Timothy, as it apparently is, snorts. "Almost, but not quite. I daresay if you'd spoken directly to them you would have found out I was a boy, but considering you probably just heard about me from rumour in the villages to the west like the rest of my would-be rescuers, I can see why you would be confused. Everyone expects there to be a princess in the tower, not a prince."

"You ain't royalty."

The kid waves a hand dismissively, "Details."

Jason huffs, amused despite his annoyance at the strange turn this quest has taken, "All right, so you're a little lord in need of a rescue, not a little lady. I can work with that."

"Oh no, you see, I don't need rescuing either, thank you." Timothy says primly, "So you can go ahead and climb right back down now."

For the second time in as many minutes, Jason finds himself nonplussed. "Wait, aren't you being kept here against your will?"

His fingers are starting to feel numb against the stone, it'd be nice if they could be having this conversation anywhere else right now.

"Not exactly." Timothy leans out further, squinting down at Jason. He can see those grey eyes roving over him with bright intelligence, and Jason knows the kind of picture he presents to others in his travel-stained leathers and worn cloak with its distinct red hood, so it's no surprise that those eyes end up lingering on his weapons more than anything else; they're the only true things of value Jason owns. The guns especially, as a relatively new invention that had come to his homeland from the west. There were many still in this part of the world who had never laid eyes on one, a fact Jason had often used his advantage.

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

His foots slips between the bricks and Jason curses, hurriedly clinging tighter to his precarious perch; the stone feels more slippery than it did just a minute ago. Sweats starts to slip down his brow and into his eyes, making them sting as he pants, "Look, not saying I don't believe you, but could we maybe have this conversation inside? Before I become a decorative smear on the ground."

At this height, a hundred feet above the hard baked earth, there's no question of that. If he falls he dies, and the only upside about the method was that it would be mercifully quick, not unlike the other incidents in his life where he had almost shaken Death's hand.

Timothy considers his words with a suspicious air. "How do I know I can trust you?"

" _Excuse_ me?!"

The boy has no sympathy for Jason's indignation. "How do I know I can trust you? There is a hefty amount of gold offered by my parents for my safe return, and discarding the matter of my gender or any true heroic tendencies you may have, I imagine that plays a significant part in what brought you to my tower today. So, if I were to let you in, how do I know you will not then force me out and home against my wishes for your own reward?"

Jason grits his teeth as another gust of wind pushes at him. All right, fair point. Timothy's not dumb, he'll grant him that. "Listen, Timothy -"

"Tim."

"- _Tim_. I don't do that sort of shit. I'm not that kind of man. I don't care whether you're a man or a woman. Admittedly I did come here in part because I need the gold, but I also don't force people to be places they don't wish to be. I don't know your story beyond what the people in the nearby villages have told me, but I'm willing to listen. So if it turns out you aren't in any danger, and are in fact not being kept here against your will, then - as much as it will pain my pocket - I'll leave you alone and be on my way. I'd just really, _really_ , like to do it without dying first."

"Swear it."

Jason groans, "Oh come on."

" _Swear it_." Tim repeats, with narrowed eyes. "Or fall, your choice."

"Oh Gods, you are - fine! I swear, on -" Jason searches for something appropriate, something meaningful. "- on my life! I swear it."

Tim smirks down at him triumphantly, and then directly where Jason can see it he swirls his fingers in a complicated gesture. To Jason's horror he then see's blue light shine over the back of his right hand in the same symbol, and realises -

"You little shit! You're a mage!"

"I dabble." Tim says modestly, continuing to smirk as he leans down, offering a hand towards Jason, who despite his new reservations still scrabbles upwards to reach for it. "Now come along, let's -" He suddenly looks forwards, eyes widening in what might be horror as the wind builds up around them with all the force of an oncoming tornado.

Jason hears a roar blast across his ears, as an immense shadow swallows up both him, the window, and Tim across the face of the tower, spurring him to remember the dragon he had been expecting to fight in the first place. Oh Gods, in the face of talking to Tim he'd forgotten, become distracted, and now the beast was here!

Jason tries to turn, holding one-handed to the tower as he reaches for his pistols, already pre-loaded with powder and a ball of iron. But he's too late. All he see's is a great expanse of black and red scales, then the creature's spined tail impacts with his chest, knocking him away from the tower and into freefall.

The pain is intense, the blow alone surely cracked some of his ribs, and the last thing Jason registers before he blacks out is Tim's voice, calling above the dragon's snarls and the rushing wind in his ears.

"KON, NO!"

 

*

 

"I said I was sorry. Two times!" Kon-el says sullenly, trailing behind Tim across the uppermost floor of the tower. "I don't know why you're still so mad at me."

Tim twitches as he steps over discarded spell books and parchment towards the bed where their new guest is laid, too pale and still to be healthy. It takes everything he has not to snap back at his errant lover. "Because you didn't _think_ , Kon. You attacked without question."

"How was I supposed to know he wasn't going to hurt you! I thought he'd come to take you away, like all the others, and then I'd never see you again." 

Tim feels his hand tugging at the back of his tunic, thick fingers tangling in rich velvet, and can't help sighing. It's not entirely Kon's fault, he knows, he's a dragon, and dragons are possessive creatures above all else. It's not as if he doesn't have precedent for the behaviour either, considering the attitudes of all the other knights who'd come to Tim's tower since he'd moved in here a century ago.

It was amazing how long some stories could linger; the tale of the princess in the tower, guarded by a cruel and vicious dragon, never seemed to age. Even though his parents were long gone, mere bones in their crypts, and their family home was in ruins to the east, heroes still came to save him, brought by the tale the surrounding villages kept alive amongst themselves. 

Normally he was content to let Kon-El deal with them, but this time was different.

This man on Tim's bed, whose name he hadn't even learned before Kon knocked him to his almost death, was the first who'd ever listened to what he'd had to say. The first one who hadn't charged in with sword and shield first, yelling a challenge in hopes of glory and a quick reward.

Tim had studied him well during the three days in which he'd carefully scouted around the tower, noting his lack of heavy armour, herald and destrier. The stranger had come to find the princess unadorned, with only his base tools in hand. He hadn't been foolish enough to take the immediate lack of visible threat as a sign there was none, and that cautious intelligence, that difference, had been enough to stop Tim from dealing with him in his own efficient way.

That, and with Kon gone off in the east on a week long hunt, he'd needed something with which to occupy himself.

So he'd watched and waited, and been perfectly poised for when the stranger finally made his move, scaling the walls of the tower with admirable agility. Tim had him right where he wanted him, which was of course when Kon came blundering in.

"Tim, c'mon. Please don't be mad at me, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known, I was just worried about you." Strong muscled arms link around his stomach and Tim sighs, falling back against a broad chest. It's remarkably hard to stay mad with Kon for any significant amount of time, but he supposes that's his own fault for sharing his heart with the young dragon in the first place. "I missed you."

"I know." He admits, turning his head and looking up at Kon. "I missed you too."

In this form, Kon looks like a human teenager. Tall and broad, with huge powerful shoulders and thick muscled limbs. The only holdovers from his dragon-side are his brilliant blue eyes with their reptilian pupils and even those he could hide if he wished.

"But you're still mad at me?" Kon looks down at him uncertainly, leaning into Tim's touch when he reaches up and brushes his knuckles down the side of his face.

Tim sighs, "I'm annoyed, but what's done is done. He wasn't too far gone to bring back, at least."

Kon's eyes turn to the bed, eyes narrowing. The blow from his tail had sent the stranger falling, but it was Tim's spell which slowed his descent through the air enough for his body to survive the impact with the ground, then tethered his soul back where it belonged before the shock could send it fleeing to the other side.

A complicated bit of magic, and not one he'd had the opportunity to use before. It had been a pleasant surprise to find that it had worked.

"Why'd you save him, anyway?" Kon asks, "You've never cared about any of them before."

Tim smiles at the question, then slips out of his arms. On the bed the stranger's breathing is weak, but slow and steady. Tim's no healer, but the blossom of bruises across the man's chest were enough to help him deduce the cracked ribs, and there had been no mistaking the broken leg the man had sustained when he collided with the earth. The leg he'd made a splint for and set as best he could, while the ribs he knew were best left alone to fix themselves. That was the extent of what he knew how to do though, and Tim wishes he'd paid more attention to medical spells before now in his studies.

He's alive though, and that's what matters most in the end.

"This one is different, he actually listened to what I had to say. He even swore an oath to listen to my story, and not take me anywhere against my will." Tim answers distractedly, fingers brushing along the curious streak of white hair that tumbles forth over the stranger's right eye. When he presses his fingers against its source Tim can feel the rough edges of a hidden scar running back over the man's scalp. 

Behind him Kon is tense, but listening. Tim beckons him to approach the bed.

"So?" His lover asks again, cautiously, standing at Tim's shoulder and looking down also.

Tim allows himself a smile, " _So_ , it's been a long time since we've had any company other than our own, or news of how the world has moved on." His eyes drift to the unknown weapons the stranger carried with him, alongside the more familiar sight of a steel blade. "If he's interesting enough we could even invite him to stay, it's been a few decades since we last had a thrall."

"Not since Cassie."

"Not since Cassie." Tim murmurs, echoing Kon's quiet remark. Mutual grief strikes them for a moment, echoing down the connection of their shared heartbeat, as well as a mutual hunger. "What do you think?"

Kon studies the man with a covetous eye now he is certain that there is no danger of him stealing Tim away from his hoard, and Tim waits patiently for him as he makes up his mind, only catching the occasional glimpse of the internal workings of the dragon's mind. Even after all this time he can't completely interpret the alien complexities of Kon's thoughts, but feelings, feelings are easy enough.

_Desire._

Tim smiles, knowing he's won even before Kon even opens his mouth. 

"Okay, I guess. But if he tries anything..."

"I don't think he's going to be any great danger to me with a broken leg, but yes. If he tries to harm either of us, you can do away with him as you will." Tim rolls his eyes before turning finally, leaning up and pressing his mouth to Kon's in a firm rewarding kiss. "Now go check your hoard like I know you're dying to. After that," he smirks, "You can make up to me all the days of your absence."

The hungry gleam in Kon's eyes doesn't fade even as he pulls away and makes for the staircase leading down to the chamber at the base of the tower, where lays all the gold and jewels and other gleaming treasures his lover values after Tim. Kon can't rest easy after he comes home until he's certain that every coin, crown and sceptre is exactly where it was when he left, and at this point Tim doesn't think much of it; it's routine, a comfort, and will calm any lingering insecurities Kon may have over their guest's presence.

While he waits Tim takes a seat on the bed beside the stranger, fingers brushing once again across his handsome still face and through his hair before reaching down to adjust the furs around the man's shoulders. Then he turns, picking up the sword he placed beside the bed and laying it across his lap, sliding the blade just far enough out of the scabbard that he can regard the stylised bat stamped into the metal below the hilt.

He has a lot of interest in finding out how a son of Wayne came to his doorstep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Here's another chapter of this for you all today while I continue to work on other things XD I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, hopefully you'll all enjoy reading it just as much. As a note, Conner here is mostly based off his season 1 of YJ self, being all dragon-y and such. Thanks!

_Jason is twelve years-old._

_Twelve years-old, and on top of the world as he clings to the outer wall of his father’s keep. Up so far it feels the wind steals the air from his lungs with every breath he takes, and when he looks down below he can see all the men and women who serve House Wayne scurrying about like ants beneath his feet between the stables and the chapel, with the courtyard a grey square separating the two. Further back stretches the expanse of Gotham City, a patchwork quilt of houses sewn in many shades of grey, set against a the blue backdrop of the sea stretching into the horizon._

_He never knew the world could look so amazing from above, and Jason can't entirely begrudge Dick his laughter when he notices him lingering._

_"Hurry up, Jason! You can look all you want when we're at the top!"_

_"Shut up, you ass!" He calls back, "I'm coming!"_

_Hand over hand, he climbs upwards, and the dream is familiar enough that Jason remembers what comes next as clear as day. His small childlike fingers grasp for the head of a gargoyle, one of many that sit atop the castle guarding the walls, but he doesn't see the wet moss that covers the creature’s head, and when his grip slips he screams with the high-pitched wail of a boy whose voice hasn't yet broken._

_But it's okay, he knows what comes next. He knows, even as it feels sickeningly like his inner organs stay suspended up in the air inside him for a split-second longer than the rest of his body, that his brother will save him. That Dick will catch his wrist in the dream at the last moment as he did in reality, and pull Jason up, up to the roof, where they will hold each other tight and eventually laugh about this incident once their hearts have stopped pounding in their chests. There will be secret oaths sworn not to tell Bruce, sealed with spit and dirt, before Dick leads him to a trap door in the roof and a safer route back down than the one they took up._

_Dick will catch him._

_Except that he doesn't._

_Except that this time the dream doesn't follow reality. This time he falls and keeps falling, terrified by the knowledge that the hard stone of the courtyard below is rushing up to meet him. The inevitability of death snaps at his heels as he looks down as sees the ground peeling back in the form of jagged teeth, exposing a gaping inferno of a maw and Jason screams; this time his voice deeper, that of the man he'll grow to be._

_And -_

His eyes snap open.

Jason lays frozen, cold sweat on his skin, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. His breath comes quick and shallow, as his lungs struggle to remember how to breathe normally and ugly ripples of pain constrict his chest.

"Bad dream?"

The soft question, asked by an equally soft voice, has Jason's head turning whip-quick in its owner’s direction. For a moment he can only stare dumbly at the other presence in the room, a boy sitting cross-legged next to him on the bed, wearing a red tunic that looks a size too big for him and black hose that stop at the ankles above narrow bare feet. The feet have long toes, he notices, long like the slender fingers on the boy's hands when he reaches to touch Jason's brow.

Jason flinches back at first, before surrendering to the cool and gentle touch. He feels too weak not to. "Who -"

"Take a deep breath. _Think_ , and you'll remember."

Lost for what else to do, Jason obeys, sinking back into the soft bed he finds himself laid upon. It takes a minute, but as his mind calms and his body deigns to work with him instead of against him, he remembers.

"Tim?"

The boy smiles, his teeth even and very white even against his pale skin. "That's right."

Jason swallows and thinks further, back to what occurred last in his memory. There was the boy, Tim, and a... an agreement, a... he fails to remember, and it nags at him, for it feels like an important detail is passing him by. He does remember one thing though,with a sudden alarming clarity that has him trying to jump off the bed and then crying out as all the broken pieces of his ribs grind together and a throbbing pain makes its way up his left leg. "FUCK!"

Tim is there, pushing him back down even as Jason struggles. "Stop, easy, you're hurt. Your ribs, and your leg -"

"Fuck my ribs! The dragon! There was a -"

"Yes, yes. There was." Tim says, with some exasperation. Despite his slight appearance he has no trouble holding Jason down; he's still very weak from the fall. "But it's all right, you're safe now."

"Safe?!" Jason exclaims incredulously, "What - how?! How am I -" he looks around himself, at the circled interior of what he's sure is the tower he was climbing before, then back to Tim. The latticed windows look the same, even viewed from the inside. "You said you weren't being kept against your will!"

"I'm not."

"Then why -"

Tim sighs, though not without some amusement. "It's okay, he wouldn't have hurt you if he'd known."

"What?" Jason stares now. "Who wouldn't have?"

"Kon."

"Kon?"

"The dragon. His name is Kon-El."

Jason gapes, "That thing has a name?!"

Tim's eyes narrow suddenly, any trace of friendliness dropping off his fine-boned features. "Yes, _he_ does. Kon-El attacked you only because he thought I was in danger. Now that he knows I'm not, you're safe."

Still disbelieving, Jason swallows. "You control i - him?"

"No. He's my... friend." Tim says after a moment of thought, expression still hard as he looks down at Jason from where he sits. For the first time Jason notices the thin gold bracelets that circle his ankles, clinking gently together each time he moves."My friend. And what are you, Ser Wayne?"

Jason jumps at the use of that name, as well as he can considering his prone position and broken body. "How did you -"

"Your sword." Tim's hand points across the room, to where the weapon stands leant against the wall with what looks like Jason's travelling pack and his guns next to ti.

Shit, Jason closes his eyes for a moment. He knew he should have filed the damn emblem off the blade, but no matter how many times he'd considered the notion he'd never actually been able to bring himself to follow through. "It's Todd, actually. Jason Todd."

"Jason then." Tim smiles, finally seeming to relax again. "Are you bastard-born?"

"Adopted." His parents had been married, and he was fairly sure he wasn't actually blood-related to Bruce, unlike Damian (not that it would surprise him to find one day find out otherwise with all the secrets the man held). "What... what happened to me?"

"You fell." His hand touches Jason's forehead again, long-fingered and cooling against the simmering fever in his body. "You were lucky though, you survived, but your left leg is broken and at least half your ribs are cracked."

"Your friend hits hard."

Tim laughs, "He'll take that as a compliment if you tell him."

Jason grunts, thinking it may be some time before he can make it outside again to palaver with a dragon, should he ever want to. "We'll see when I can walk again."

Tim smiles, as if there's a joke he's missing. "Here, drink some water, it will help. Then you should eat if you can."

He passes a goblet to Jason, who manages to pry one arm free of the furs that have been draped over him to grasp it. The water tastes clean, good and sweet against his parched throat. Jason empties all of that cup, then a second when Tim refills it for him.

Afterwards he manages to choke down some broth from a bowl Tim produces, seemingly hidden from his sight before at the side of the bed. It leaves him feeling a little stronger, enough to wonder further at his predicament.

"So you're not a captive."

"I already told you that, and I'm pretty sure you didn't hit your head that hard." Tim says mildly, adjusting the furs around Jason in a way that makes him feel oddly warm. 

Jason doesn't rise to the barb. "And the dragon is your friend."

"Yes."

"If that's so, why the reward? Why the story you were kidnapped?"

Tim shrugs, reaching up brush his dark hair back behind his ear. The sleeves of his tunic are voluminous, and more akin to the style Jason sometimes saw the old men wearing in town when he was a boy than the modern fashions he's used to. "My parents disagreed with my choice to abdicate from my birthright, and with Kon. Like most, they didn't believe a dragon could be anything but a vicious beast. So when I left home they offered gold for my return and the story spread. Eventually word-of-mouth turned it to the form in which you heard it."

Jason's eyelids feel heavy again already, but he fights to stay awake, as intrigued by the story as he ever was by one of Alfred's bedtime tales. He's never heard anything like it. "Sounds pretty crazy to me. How long have you been stuck here?"

"I'm not stuck, this is my home." Tim emphasises again, in case Jason's forgotten his point once more about not being a captive. "And a while. Enough years for people to forget the details."

An oddly vague answer, he thinks. Stranger still, since Tim looks all of eighteen, if that. Younger than Jason by a couple of years. "Huh. But -"

"Get some more rest, Jason." Tim says abruptly, before he can ask any further questions. "We'll talk again on the 'morrow."

Jason opens his mouth to protest, but all that comes out is a great yawn. It's then he realises that something: either the water or the broth must have been laced with a sleeping potion, because he can't even feel the pain from his battered body anymore. "You bastard, you... drugged me."

Tim shrugs, "I can't heal you, but I can help you with your pain. It seemed best for you to sleep." 

The growl of protest Jason tries to summon dies in his throat. He doesn't appreciate the choice being taken out of his hands and resolves to tell Tim that later, should he remember.

At least this time he doesn't dream.

 

*

 

The next time he awakens Tim isn't there waiting on him. It's someone else, a heavily muscled young man with a sullen expression on his face as he stares Jason down from the foot of the bed.

"The fuck are you?" Jason croaks, feeling far more cranky waking up this time around than the last.

He has to remember in the future that Tim is a sneaky little bastard, in more ways than one.

"I'm... Ko - Conner." The man says, his brief hesitance seemingly from being taken aback by the strength of Jason's words. "I live here with Tim."

His eyes are blue too, Jason thinks, with strange focus as Conner comes around the side of the bed. Very blue, a far brighter shade than Tim's stormy shade; it's the contrast of a clear sunny day compared to a rain-filled cloud. Not at all unpleasant to look at either.

Jason shakes his head at the stray thought. Gods, how hard had he hit the ground?

"Tim didn't say he lived with anyone."

"It wouldn't have crossed his mind to tell you the last time you were awake. Most things don't until they come into play, he can be funny like that." Conner puts his arm around Jason's shoulders, lifting him to a sitting position with surprising ease and setting pillows behind his back before he can think to try and move himself. He groans sharply at the grinding of his ribs, then settles back against the headboard. 

"He said I should wait here while he's working," Conner continues, "in case you needed anything."

"Working?"

"Studying." Conner corrects himself. "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Need anything."

Not the most elegant with words, this one. Jason's about to say no on reflex, but then a couple human necessities strike him with embarrassing need. "Could use the privy. Then some more water."

Conner considers this for a moment, then nods. "All right."

His arm goes back around Jason's shoulders before he can say anything else, lifting him again with the same ease as before, this time out of the bed. All that muscle is not just for show, and even though Conner turns out to be a couple inches shorter than Jason himself he has no trouble holding him up. Jason quickly finds himself with his arm looped over broad shoulders, balancing on his good leg as he hops across the room under Conner's supervision, then through a oak and wrought-iron door to a partitioned off section of the room.

"Do you need -"

"I can take care of this part myself, thanks." Jason says, trying not to appear flustered as he pushes away from Conner and takes hold of the wall to support himself instead.

Conner scratches the back of his head, his gaze openly dubious, "Well, if you’re sure. I'll uh... be outside when you're done then. Just knock on the door."

"Sure."

Jason waits until it's closed before sagging back, finally letting out a pained gasp as his body betrays him once more. "Fuck... fuck..." He reaches down gingerly, ignoring the grinding of his ribs to feel the heated throb of his own swollen flesh when he presses his hand against his calf. He still wears his own clothes at least, though the fabric covering his right leg has been split open almost to the groin to make way for the splint that holds his bone together.

He survived. Somehow he survived that fall. But how? Jason had been so sure he'd felt death reaching for him, yet to come away with just a broken leg and a few cracked ribs...

It was either a miracle, or... it comes back to him with alarming speed. _Magic_. Tim had used magic before, he was a mage. The memory catches Jason by the throat, startling the breath from his lungs. It had to have been him; he was the reason Jason survived, and that knowledge makes unease tighten a knot in his stomach. He owes Tim his life, that much is true.

A mage with a dragon for a friend... Jason resolves to be on his guard from here on out. Maybe he's a good man, but it pays to be careful out here in the wilderness. You never knew what might be waiting around the corner to surprise you and this quest has been surprising enough already.

Taking care of his business is an uncomfortable process, but Jason's is too stubborn to ask for assistance. He manages alone, before pulling his ruined breaches back up his hips and opening the door without knocking. Jason then surprises Kon by almost falling on top of him when he tries to hop through the threshold on his own and bends forwards at the wrong angle, prompting his ribs to scream in protest at him as his knees buckle from the pain.

"Whoa! Easy! Easy!"

This time instead of just supporting Jason, Kon picks him up outright, easy as you please, and carries him back to bed as if he weighs no more than a child. That is _definitely_ not normal, Jason thinks, as a cup of water is pressed into his hand again. He knows how tall he is, how much he weighs, the idea that someone else could just manhandle him like this is... is...

"Are you okay?"

He looks up at Conner again, feeling weak as a plague-ridden kitten, and jumps when the man sits beside him on the bed, still holding Jason's hand to guide the cup to his lips. "I'm... fine." he holds back on drinking for a moment, "There's nothing in this is there?"

"Just water." Conner says, eyes narrowed. "Would you prefer wine?"

"No. I just - never mind." Jason swallows, then drinks the water down until the cup is empty. He waits a few moments just in case, but this time his head seems to remain clear, unlike before. That's a relief, because even if it means putting up with the full agony of the injuries his body has suffered he would rather keep his wits about him. Jason sighs and lays back against the pillows, closing his eyes a moment as he thinks.

Something bothers him, he just can't put his finger on exactly what it is. 

"How long have I been here?"

"Three days. You slept through most of the first two, awoke yesterday with Tim, then slept again until today."

Three days? That was a lot of time. "Shit." The bed is temptingly soft beneath him, covered with pelts of different animals: wolf, deer and even bear, he thinks. It's not hard to imagine how he could have slept so long here, Jason doesn't think he's been in a bed so comfortable since he left home. 

What an idiot he is. He should have been more careful, how could he ever have allowed himself to become distracted in the face of such danger? His teachers in combat and survival would have his hide if they knew. "I'm sorry to intrude."

"It's all right." Another voice breaks into the conversation, ahead of Tim striding forwards from the other door in the room, the one Jason hasn't yet been through that presumably leads to the tower's staircase and the other floors. "We don't mind company, even if its arrival was a bit unorthodox."

He's graceful as he crosses the cold stone floor in bare feet, the bracelets around his ankles gently chiming together, and then presses up against Conner's side, looping his arms around the other man's thick neck in what is an unmistakably intimate gesture.

Jason wonders if there's any part of Conner that isn't built thick, then regrets that thought very quickly after. His cheeks heat up as he averts his eyes quickly from the presumed couple. "That's one way to put it."

"It's fine, Jason, you can stay as long as you need. At the very least until you are healed."

"No, that's... that's fine... I said I would leave when I judged you were in no danger, so -"

"I insist." Tim's eyes seem to gleam, while Conner's brighten as he looks up at the slender boy with clear adoration. "You'll never make it through the forest alive in your condition. It's better that you stay here with us."

Jason opens his mouth to protest, then quickly closes it. Tim's right, as much as he hates to admit it. It's many miles until the nearest village, and he doesn't have a horse to carry him there. On foot he wouldn't have a prayer, not against the elements and the wolves that inhabit the wilderness; he couldn't even climb a tree to escape them should it become necessary, let alone fight them off.

There's no choice but to accept, for now at least.

"All right, I'll stay." He swallows, suddenly dry mouthed again. "Thank you."

Tim leans down, right across Connor, who's still sitting next to Jason on the bed, and puts his hand across his forehead. It's as wonderfully cool as before. He can't seem to pull away and blames it on his body's weakness. Just the trip to the privy seemed to sap all the strength his copious amounts of sleep had restored to him. "You're welcome, Jason. You still have a fever though, you should get some more rest. We'll bring dinner to you later."

He hasn't been drugged this time, Jason's sure of it. The resultant heaviness of his eyelids must be from his wounds alone.

"Yeah. Okay." Jason croaks, fighting the urge until he no longer can, and sinks back into the wonderfully comfortable bed.

He's just so tired.

 

*

 

Over the course of the next few days Jason does little more than wake, eat, then sleep again in a steady cycle until he finally feels strong enough to stay awake for more than an hour or two at a time. It's strange, but at times he feels an ache his chest concurrent to the one in his bones; a disconnect like his heart is a bird trying to escape his battered ribcage. But it goes away as his fever does, and he gives it no more thought after that.

WIth a lack of anything else to occupy him, his interest turns instead to his hosts, the curious pair of young men who live alone in an isolated tower in the middle of the forest, seemingly without concern for being cut off from the rest of the world. They are odd, there's no two ways about it, but Jason has often found that true of those who choose to live their lives in isolation. Especially when they're magicians.

Once, he met a hermit. A man who, while kind enough to share his meagre food with Jason on the one night he lingered at his hovel during a storm, had also preached to him for hours that the world they lived in was but the dream of a larger mind, and when that mind woke their world would come to an ending. 

(He'd been glad to move on after that, disturbed despite himself, and when he shared the tale with Roy the next time he passed through the City of Stars his friend had laughed himself sick for hours over their tankards of ale.)

Tim is the one he sees most frequently out of the pair of them during that first week of lucidity. Conner comes and goes, then vanishes completely for a couple of days near the end. When Jason asks Tim about his whereabouts he's told that he's the hunter out of the pair of them, and has gone to restock their larder for the weeks ahead now that there are three people living in the tower rather than just two.

Jason feels somewhat guilty over that, but reminds himself that they are the ones that insisted he stay. It hadn't been his choice to impose upon them and whatever resources they had.

"So tell me," Tim asks finally one afternoon, when the sky is thundering outside and rain is lashing against the windows. Jason is strong enough now to sit up by and use the walls to support himself as he hobbles around the room. It's done his injured pride a great deal of good to be able to move under his own power again, even in a limited capacity. "What made you choose to roam the countryside instead of staying in your father's castle?"

"He's not my father." Jason says absently. He squints out the window at the rain, wondering where the dragon is in this weather. He's only seen Kon-El once since he moved into the tower; at a distance through the window as the great black beast winged his way across the sky.

It's not the first question Tim has asked of Jason since he'd regained the strength to stay awake for longer periods of time, but it is the first one to breach personal territory. Tim has held himself back up until this point, sticking to subjects like the land he'd come from and the tools he carried, even though Jason could see that he brimmed with curiosity. He'd already had Jason teach him about his guns, the weapons that were his most precious possessions, and disassemble them before his eyes so he could examine each component individually. Afterwards Tim had astounded Jason by putting them back together himself, based purely on his observations of Jason taking them apart without a single word of guidance.

His intelligence is incredible, astounding, and... intriguing at times. As well as annoying. He's proving to be like a dog with a bone when he wants to know something, and now that Jason is stronger it seems like no subject is off limits.

Tim rolls his eyes at his deflection. "The question remains."

Jason sighs. The rain makes his bones ache. It's a sign that summer is becoming autumn, ahead of the green leaves of the trees outside turning to red and gold. "I'm the second son. When my - when Bruce passes, it's my older brother who's going to inherit. And even if he chooses not to, Bruce - he has a blood son now, Damian. Staying there was a waste of my time. I have a better chance to do something useful with my life out here." 

"He'd let an adopted child inherit ahead of his blood son?" Tim asks, correctly surmising as much from Jason's words.

"You're not the first to question it, but that's Bruce. He raised Dick in preparation of taking his title ever since he took him in, and he refused to take his position in the line of inheritance away from him even when Damian's mother threatened to make war over that choice. He loves him too much."

"And you?"

Jason looks down. "I have no wish to get in the way. Damian's not a bad kid, though he is insufferable at times, like most noble-born brats." he suddenly remembers who he's talking to, and his cheeks colour, "I didn't mean -"

Tim raises his eyebrows, smirking at him from the bed. "You did, and you're not wrong either. Many of us are insufferable."

He pats the mattress beside him invitingly. And Jason pauses only a moment before painstakingly making his way back over to the bed to sit down beside him.

"Sorry, sometimes I talk without thinking."

"You're honest." Tim observes, smiling back at him, and that smile is so lovely that Jason abruptly finds himself feeling half in love with him at the sight.

He blames it on the long days of seclusion in the tower, with only Conner and Tim for company, and the many weeks he spent travelling alone before that. His initial wariness towards them has faded despite his repeated admonishments to himself to be on his guard, worn down by a hundred small gestures of caring from them both.

Tim started it, the first to appear in Jason's room when he was awake more often than not. He would sit at the desk by the window, writing and making notes from heavy old books in languages Jason couldn't even begin to parse, or would take the spot next to him on the bed as he worked, happily speaking to Jason on all manner of topics. He’d also read to him often, keeping boredom from driving the knight insane at every turn with the warm cadence of his voice.

Conner was different. More abrupt in his mannerisms, but even with his absences he made his presence felt. There’s always fresh wood to feed the fire in Jason's room when it grows cool in the evenings, and he seemed to have a sixth sense for when Jason needed help moving about the tower before. 

Despite the strength in his broad hands Conner proved to be surprisingly gentle when he wanted to be, and some part of Jason has come to like that the other man can handle him so easily far more than he ought to.

"Honest or foolish." Jason mutters back in the present, looking down at the length of his splinted leg stretched out before him across the floor. "If I were smarter I wouldn't be in this mess."

"Is being here so bad?"

"No! No - I... damn it." He growls at himself, rubbing his hand across his forehead. "That's not what I meant. You - you and Conner are fine, this place is fine. Great actually, you've been kinder than you need to be. And I'll repay you for it as soon as I'm able."

For all his great skill with the use of weaponry and his own fists, Jason struggles far more when it comes to people. He only got along with his family as well as he did by merit of long exposure, but strangers (especially attractive, attentive strangers) seemed to disarm him easily

"You know that you don't have to do that."

"Yes. I do." Jason replies, giving Tim a sharp look. "You saved my life when you could have just left me to die. So I owe you, and as soon as I'm not banged up anymore I'll do what I have to do to make us even."

Tim looks up at him for a long moment, gaze openly appraising before a small smile tilts his lips upwards again. "All right, Jason. If it will make you more comfortable -"

"It will."

"- then that's the way it shall be."

Jason nods, satisfied at Tim's surrender, then gasps as a fresh spasm of pain cuts its way across his ribs and then ricochets down his leg.

"You're still in pain." Tim observes needlessly. He reaches down before Jason can stop him, his hand brushing over Jason's chest. "You should let me help. I can give you a potion that will -"

"I like my mind to be clear." Jason says swiftly, catching his wrist as his face heats under the attention. "I can handle a little pain in the meantime."

Tim sighs in exasperation, slowly withdrawing his hand. His fingertips graze over the fabric of Jason's borrowed shirt. "You're very stubborn, you know that?"

Jason flashes him a grin. "I'm told it's one of my better traits."

"Are you sure whoever said that wasn't being sarcastic?"

"Ouch! That was vicious." Jason laughs, then yelps. Laughing hurts with broken ribs. "You've got a mean streak, huh?"

"I call things like I see them." Tim's eyes flash with concern, and amusement. "I wish you'd let me help the way I know how, but I'll respect your wishes. Even if I think they're stupid ones."

Jason snorts, "Double ouch. Don't hold back now, will you, Timmers? I might start to think you like me if you keep talking that way."

"What did you just call me?"

"Timmers?" Jason grins, sensing a target. "Timmy, Timbers, Timbo? ... don't tell me you've never had a nickname before."

"None like that." TIm rolls his eyes, trying to keep his face straight. The little pinch of annoyance that shows at the corner of his mouth is cute. "And I'm glad for it, that's a ridiculous turn on my name."

Oh yes, Jason decides, he will absolutely be keeping this up. "Whatever you say, Tim-Tim."

"Gods." Tim groans. "You are lucky that I do, or I would call Kon back to finish the job."

Jason feels like he just went temporarily deaf and missed half of Tim's sentence. "Do what?"

"Like you, you idiot."

 _Vicious_ , Jason thinks again, with a certain degree of fondness but he's more focused on the expression of affection to give much thought to the insult that accompanied it. "Oh."

"Is that so strange to hear?" Tim asks, apparently reading his mind as Jason is lost for words.

Jason looks away quickly, shrugging as casually as he can. "We haven't known each other that long, and our first meeting wasn't exactly under the best of circumstances."

"I hardly hold that against you, given that you didn't know the truth, and you did come with good intentions." Tim explains, folding his hands in his lap. "I wouldn't have let you inside my home otherwise."

It will do him no good to get attached since he'll be leaving as soon as he's able, but Jason still feels his cheeks warm at the admittance. "I suppose." He swallows, feeling a sudden need to change the subject. "So tell me anyway, how does one befriend a dragon? You've asked a lot of questions of me and said hardly anything about yourself in return."

The question makes Tim smile, he looks down at his lap as he speaks. "I was thirteen. My parents were away on one of their trips to a neighbouring Duchy. They were always leaving me behind, so I had grown used to taking the opportunity to wander and explore without supervision. So long as I made sure to be back in time for dinner and complete all of my studies none of the castle staff cared to stop me, not even our castellan."

Bruce's own castellan, Alfred, would have had Jason's hide just the same if he'd missed any of his meals or lessons. But he also would have given Bruce a piece of his mind if he had left any of his sons alone as frequently to travel as Tim seems to be implying his parents did..

“I was out in the forest one day when I heard something, a crash like many trees falling at once. I went to look for the cause and that's when I found him, Kon-El." Tim's smile widen. "Anyone else might have seen a dragon and immediately called for aid to deal with the beast."

"But not you." Jason repositions himself on the bed, leaning back against the headboard to lessen the strain on his ribs while he listens to the tale.

"But not me. I wanted a closer look. I was fascinated more than I was afraid, and I could see he was already injured. That made me feel braver."

"How well did that work out for you?"

In reply Tim stretches out his right arm and pulls up his sleeve, exposing more soft white skin and an ugly scar. Jason's eyes widen at the deep groove of it, extending almost from elbow to wrist on the back of Tim's arm, and he's reaching out to touch before he even thinks the motion through. "That must have hurt like hell."

"It did, but it was my fault. I should have thought better of sneaking up on a sleeping dragon."

"And you still made friends with him?"

"He was hurt." Tim says again. "He'd been attacked by a knight the next valley over, marked as an easy target because he's still young for his species. He only just managed to escape into the lands of my home and attacked because he was afraid. Afterwards I managed to stagger back home. I blamed my wound on a fall when asked where the injury came from. Then the next day..."

"You went back?"

"I went back." TIm grins, "You're not the only one who can be stubborn. I was determined to get closer and learn more about him; about dragons. So I stole meat from the kitchens and brought it to Kon. It took some days, but eventually he realised I meant him no harm and let me near. Then we began to talk."

Jason's eyes widen, "Talk?"

"Dragons are capable of human speech, Jason." Tim says, clearly enjoying his surprise. "How else do you think I managed to call Kon off from eating you? They're just picky about who they speak to, that's all. Afterwards he apologised for wounding me, and from there we got to know each other and became friends. He shared information about his kind with me and in return I told him about my own life and the ways of humans. He remained living on our lands for years in secret, until I was sixteen and we were finally discovered."

"Let me guess, didn't go so well?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Tim spreads his hands, moving his arm away from Jason's touch and letting his sleeve slide back down over the scar there. "Leaving was the best thing for both of us."

Jason knows he probably shouldn't, but he still can't help asking, "Do you ever miss it? Your home and your family?"

For the first time in their short acquaintance Tim seems without an immediate answer. Jason can see him turning the question over in his head, examining it from every angle and analysing whatever feelings he finds within himself. 

"No."

The answer finally comes short and sweet, without a hint of regret, and Tim stands up afterwards, before Jason can ask any of the other burning questions he has. For all that Tim is seemingly a scholar who never leaves his tower, he is graceful in motion in a way that reminds Jason of Dick for a moment (yet also not, because he never found himself looking at his brother the way he does Tim). He uncurls from the bed like a dancer, and Jason feels his own weakened body twinge in envy at the easy way Tim stretches the kinks out of his body after having sat down so long.

Envy. Definitely.

"Leaving me already?"

"I have some things to take care of, but Conner will be here soon." Tim informs him, "I think he has something for you."

"Something for me?" Jason shifts again on the bed, stretching out his aching leg and wishing he could allow himself to accept Tim's offer of pain relief for a moment. "What is it?"

"If I told you it would spoil the surprise, so you'll have to wait and see when he gets here." 

Tim turns then, leaving Jason to his own devices in the top room of the tower.

"Sure," he sighs as he leans back, not sure what to make of all he's just learned. "It's not like I'm going anywhere anytime soon."

 

*

 

Tim tells the truth, it doesn't take long for Conner to show after he exits the room.

The sound of the door opening prompts Jason to rouse himself from where he's been laid, reading an outdated history book of the Western Kingdoms for lack of anything better to do. It's dry and dull stuff, and Jason's on the verge of falling asleep when Conner comes in. It's no wonder Tim has so many questions about the larger world when this is the kind of reading material he has access to. 

"Conner." Jason says by way of greeting. 

"Jason." Conner replies, his blue eyes focused on Jason as he sits himself up on the bed, setting the book to one side. The excess fabric of the borrowed shirt he wears (one of Conner’s) slips across his shoulders, and Jason self-consciously tugs it back into place as Conner watches him. "I um, have something for you."

"Tim might have mentioned that." Jason says mildly, trying not to show his curiosity as Conner approaches the bed. He's brusque and to the point in the way Jason has come to expect from him, and he doesn't come empty handed.

"Of course he did." Conner says, with what might be fond exasperation, as he brings up what he holds for Jason's inspection. "He's been looking forward to me giving it to you all day."

It's a staff, long and sturdy, made of carved wood which splits into two separate prongs at the top. Two branches must have once grown there once on the tree it came from, but they've been cut and sanded down to smooth edges. The whole thing stands a few inches taller than Conner's shoulder. He looks awkward for a moment, jaw clenched as he thrusts the staff meaningfully towards Jason's hands. "Here."

For a moment all Jason does is look at the staff. "Did you... make this?"

Conner nods, jaw clenching harder, as if he's struggling to get the words out. "We… _I_ thought you must be getting fed up of being stuck in this one room. I know I wouldn't be able to stand it if I were in your place. This will make it easier for you to move around the tower by yourself."

Jason takes the staff from Conner, holding it carefully in his hands and marking how well made it is. It's not just a stick picked up off the ground or a branch lopped off of a tree, then roughly carved to be purely functional. It's actually been crafted with care and skill, the wood sanded and oiled until it's smooth and polished, ensuring that there will be no danger of splinters when used. 

To construct something like this is not the work of hours but days, and Jason is struck dumb for a moment over how to respond to such a gesture.

"Thank you." He says eventually, weighing the staff before turning the end to the floor. Jason takes a careful breath before pushing himself to stand, and when he leans upon it the wood bears his weight easily. It's much easier than having to push himself across the walls and furniture for support. "Really, I - this is great. It must have taken you a long time."

"It's only wood." Conner says, shrugging, with his eyes curiously bright as he watches Jason hobble around. "Not silver or -"

"No really, I mean it. Wood is fine." Jason hastens to say, unsure why Conner thinks he might be expecting anything more than a wooden staff from him when he wasn’t actually expecting anything at all. Silver especially seems rather excessive. "You're right, I don't deal very well with being confined." 

Or with having to rely on another to help him move around, but Jason keeps that part to himself. He doesn't want to be rude to Conner considering his previous help.

Still glaring at the staff like it's insufficient, Conner grudgingly nods. "You can go into any room in the tower that isn't locked. Though you should be careful on the staircases, they can be tricky even without a broken leg for a - for anyone."

"I'll manage." Jason assures him, just grateful for the option to move around at all. "What's the matter, don't want me to find all the skeletons in your closet?"

"What?" Conner asks, looking startled.

Well, that's a reassuring reaction. "It's a joke."

"Oh. _Oh_ , right." Conner scratches the back of his head again. "I can show you around, if you want. Or..." He appears to think for a moment, deeply judging by the hard frown on his face. "... we have a bath. If you would like one."

Forget the staff, this is the offer that almost endears Conner to Jason without question. He can't imagine how foul he must appear and smell to his hosts at this point. After having only been able to wash the worst of his fever sweats away with a wet cloth previously the prospect of a bath is _heavenly_ in comparison.

"Does a bear shit in the woods?" Jason replies eagerly, not thinking of minding his tongue for once, and Conner gets such a constipated look on his face at the question that this time Jason can't help laughing at it. "Sorry, sorry." He hastens to say, reminding himself that Conner seems to have a very literal mind. "That means yes."

Conner looks annoyed at first, but then his expression breaks, a smile tilting up his lips and showing a hint of very white teeth. "Follow me then."

Jason does just that, tailing him carefully out of the other door in the room; the one that does not lead to the privy. Just as he suspected previously there's a spiral staircase on the other side of the heavy oak and wrought iron, and it quickly becomes clear why Conner felt the need to warn him to be careful while traversing up and down the steps. The staircase is clearly not made with the idea of any physically impaired person in mind, but at least the steps are smooth and even surfaced, without the worn dips in the centre of the stone that Jason would come to expect from long use. So long as he takes his time about it Jason should easily manage to climb them alone.

"So how did you find this place?"

"What?"

"You and Tim, how did you find this tower? It looks like it's been here far longer than you must have been."

"Kon-El did." Conner says vaguely, not looking back at Jason as he does. "It's easy for a dragon to see what humans never would."

Jason frowns as he eases his way down another step, one hand gripping his new staff and the other bracing against the wall. He realises something suddenly, "Tim never said how the two of you met. Or how long you had known each other."

He'd only spoken of the dragon, and for a moment that itching in Jason's brain is back, digging and whispering that there is something else he should realise. Some missing piece of the puzzle he is almost on top of, but it still remains just out of his grasp.

"Some years. I knew Tim as a boy, and was with him when he left his home." Conner replies with a shrug, stopping on the next level of the tower and placing his hands against another door. He pushes it open and the sudden rush of heat and steam that leaks out into the stairwell cuts off Jason's next question as he's beckoned forwards. "This way."

 _He never mentioned taking anyone else with him from his home but the dragon_. Jason almost says, but bites his tongue, filing that information away for later as he hops on through the doorway.

The room beyond is an impossibility.

It must take up the entirety of this level of the tower, as Jason can see the now familiar latticed windows ringing each side of the curved walls. The stones on the floor here are darker than those above, blackened like they've been scorched by fire, and the room is lit by exquisitely wrought candle stands of glimmering silver. Each holds a multitude of tall white candles, their wicks burning steadily as they reflect upon the water.

"How... how?" Jason questions as he looks into the deep pool that takes up the centre of the room, full of steaming water as if from a natural hot spring. Yet it can't be, this floor is nowhere near the ground. For the water to make it up here in such a quantity and still be so hot is beyond his understanding. It must be at least five foot deep and ten feet wide at either side. "Is this -"

"Magic." Conner answers his unspoken question with an affirming nod. He leads Jason further inside, shutting the door behind them before crossing to a tall curved wardrobe that stands against the wall on the left. He opens it to reveal shelves full of towels, of which Conner takes a few and brings them over to the water’s edge. "We have to ferry the water up here ourselves, but magic is what keeps it hot."

"Tim's doing?"

For the first time Jason sees Conner break into a full smile. It's loving, clearly, and also proud, with an edge of possession to boot. "He's very powerful in the craft."

"I can see that." Jason sucks in a breath. With his kind of skill Tim would be welcome at any hall around the world, including Bruce's, yet here he hides out in the middle of nowhere, alone except for one man and a dragon.

"Do you need help?"

Jason shakes himself out of his awe, noticing that Conner is watching him with that intense gaze again. He must have taken Jason's hesitation for something else, and Jason hurries to dissuade him of the notion by shaking his head and reaching for the fastenings of his shirt himself. "I can manage."

Keeping a hand on his staff, he unbuttons his shirt, then reaches for the lace fastenings of his breeches. All under Conner's watch. Though he's bathed with other men plenty of times in the past (his brothers, Roy, soldiers in his father’s guard after a long march brought them to a suitable brook and no one had any time for modesty in the face of the fleeting opportunity to be clean) Jason now finds himself with his face reddening in a way it never has before.

"You don't have to stay, you know."

"You may need help climbing back out of the pool, it's best that I do." Conner replies, not doing him the courtesy of looking away even for a moment.

Jason swallows hard, then grits his teeth. It's nothing, he's just trying to be helpful and probably didn't mean to imply that Jason can't take care of himself. So what? And it's not like Jason's ever been particularly modest before, his early childhood had given him no cause for it. He slides first one arm out of his shirt, then the other, switching hands on the staff as he does, then tries to work out how to get the breeches off without toppling over. His face grows hotter in frustration as he struggles, trying not to fall or strain his broken leg while he works them down before Conner finally steps up to him.

"Let me help." He says, his eyes very blue as he looks into Jason's, and all the sharp protests Jason had ready on his tongue die as Conner kneels down at his feet, replaced by a strange calm.

Broad hands move gently to Jason's legs, brushing his skin before taking hold of the fabric and guiding it down to pool around his feet. Under Conner's guidance it no longer snags around the splint holding Jason's bone together and he only winces the once as he lifts that leg enough for Conner to remove the breeches from around it entirely, slipping them out from under his foot. After that it's easy for him to step forwards, freeing the other leg by himself before moving to the water’s edge.

Conner catches his elbow without asking or being asked, steadying Jason as he lowers himself first to sit down at the edge of the pool, then slides forwards into the water.

He gasps as soon as he's submerged. The heat incredible against his sore and abused flesh, soothing the consistent ache in his bones. Jason sinks deeper down into the water at once until it's level with his chin, closing his eyes at how good it feel. There's a mineral smell to it, just like he would expect to find in any natural hot spring, and Jason can't resist ducking his head under the water’s surface entirely, before emerging back up and shaking himself like a wet dog just in time to hear a loud splash to his right.

The source of the sound is easy to discover; Conner has also divested himself of his clothing and jumped into the water at the other side of the pool from Jason. Jason's face colours, from both the heat and proximity of his company. It's as if the water grew somehow even warmer the moment Conner entered it, and Jason tries to reason to himself that the idea is entirely in his own head.

He sinks even lower into water at the sight, but unlike Jason Conner seems completely unconcerned with modesty. The obvious definition of the muscles on the full display in front of him has Jason's cock twitching traitorously between his legs, and he averts his eyes as soon as he's able, trying to find some other point in the room to focus on while hoping the water is cloudy enough not to betray him.

Jason doesn't know what's wrong with him today. First he found himself looking at Tim lecherously, now Conner too. The two of them would be... if they knew... he swallows. He'd surely find himself turfed out of the tower and into the wilderness.

"Are you okay?" Conner asks with a deep rumble, from far closer to him than Jason is strictly comfortable with. He forces himself to nod, still not looking back at him.

"My ribs hurt, that's all."

"Are you sure?" A hand touches his shoulder and he has to fight not to flinch.

"I'm sure." Jason says sharply, "The water's helping."

Conner says nothing for a moment, and when he does respond it's with a blunt, "Fine." that has Jason feeling like he may have done something to disappoint him, even though he doesn't know what it could possibly be. He stubbornly ignores the feeling and focuses on relaxing, letting the heat of the water do its part in easing the taut feeling in his muscles that comes from prolonged pain.

At some point Conner shifts away from him, and as he does the temperature of the water drops a few degrees, but Jason, now lulled into a state of lethargic comfort by the bath, barely notices. It's hard to think of anything now but the fact he is pain free for the first time in almost two weeks, and it must be almost an hour before he manages to open his eyes again and think about actually scrubbing himself clean and climbing out.

There are washcloths and a small collection of soaps sitting in a small basin on the pool’s side. Jason helps himself to them, scrubbing his body and hair in a quick and businesslike manner before moving to haul himself back out of the bath, taking care not to look again in Conner's direction all the while - though he is constantly aware of his presence. The heat of the water has dulled his senses though, encouraging him to forget how damaged his body still is, and as he tries to lift himself out of the water he pays for it with a sudden burst of pain across his ribs when his arms buckle under the strain.

"Shit!" Jason yelps, gasping as he tries to breathe through the dizzying pain.

"Here, let me help you." Conner says suddenly from behind him, apparently having glided silently through the water from the other side of the pool at the first sound of Jason's distress, then - still with all that marvellous strength he displayed before - he takes hold of Jason by his waist (prompting another ear-burning blush to spread across his face) and boosts him out of the water to sit on the bath’s edge. 

The lift takes Jason's breath away, shame and pleasure mingling together in a confusing mess inside him for a moment as he tries to clear his head. "I didn't need your help." he mumbles defensively, but takes the towel Conner hands him to dry off with anyway.

"I never said you did." Conner replies, shaking his head as he dries himself off nearby. He has the good sense not to offer Jason any aid with this part.

They dress in silence after, and Jason suffers through being aided in that process once more before taking up his new staff. He gets himself up onto his feet again, aware of Conner's watchful gaze the whole time.

"Come on," the younger man says, again with something like disappointment, like he was expecting Jason to reach out for his arm like a swooning maiden, "I'll take you back upstairs and call Tim; the bandages holding your splint will need changing now that they've been wetted."

Going back up the stairs is a lot harder than coming down them was, but Jason manages it alone, even if he's keenly aware of Conner on the steps behind him the entire time, ready to catch Jason should he slip and fall. By the time they make it back up to the top floor his good leg threatens to shake with exhaustion as much as his broken one; the price paid for unfamiliar exertion after a fortnight of idleness.

Jason ignores that throbbing ache as he crosses the final few feet back to the bed and collapses downwards onto the mattress. He’s sweating from the exertion, undoing all the good that the bath has done him, but now that he's proven he is capable of it Jason resolves to move about the tower under his own power from now on, no matter how much time it takes.

"Jason?" Conner asks, leaning over him. His handsome face is twisted up in a concerned frown, but Jason shakes his head.

"Go get Tim. I'm fine, don't worry about me."

"If you say so." Conner agrees, but he lingers for a moment still, his eyes drawing over Jason with what almost looks like hunger before he does as he's told, disappearing back through the door to find Tim wherever he may be.

Jason shivers as he leans back against the headboard, then casts a longing glance at the nearest window. Outside it's still raining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visit me on [tumblr!](http://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /waves
> 
> Hi everyone. Here's some more dragon AU for you this week. Not sure what to say but that I had fun with this one, and I've also upped the chapter count because I've thought of a good idea for an epilogue when we're done with the main thrust of the story XD Enjoy!

“What about gold?” Kon asks, his hand running up and down Tim’s back in lazy strokes from the base of his spine to his scapula. They finished having sex just ten minutes ago, and now that the afterglow is fading it hasn’t taken his lover long to get back on the subject that spurred them into bed together in the first place: Jason. “He didn’t seem too interested in silver.”

Tim reaches down, grasping at the heavy sheepskin at the bottom of the bed. He tries to tug it upwards to cover his legs and ass, as the drying sweat on his skin now leaves him feeling a little cold in the face of the light breeze drifting in through the open window.

Noticing this, Kon reaches down to help him, hauling the heavy skin upwards with ease until it covers them both to the waist. “Tim?”

“I don’t know, Kon. It’s hard to say.” Tim yawns into Kon’s collarbone. “He’s the son of a powerful lord, if wealth was what he desired he could have simply stayed home.”

“... jewels then? I have plenty of those.”

Tim stifles a giggle, having to bite down against it, though he knows Kon feels his amusement down the warm current of their bond anyway. “You might have to think outside the box on this one, love.”

“It’s how my kind courts.” Kon protests, looking put out.

“I know. But you didn’t have to do that to woo me, remember?”

Kon snorts, “That’s because you were the one doing the wooing.” His hand slips lower down, cupping the firm globes of Tim’s ass, “I didn’t even realise I was being hooked until it was too late. Then it was all I could do to try and catch up with you.”

“Which you did wonderfully.” Tim assures him, brushing his feet - and the bracelets circling his ankles - against Kon’s. “He liked your handmade gift.”

“That was just -”

“Something you personally put hours of time into to make specifically for him. He didn’t say it, but I’m sure it meant more to him than a simple gold necklace or diamonds would have. You should have seen his face when I brought it up while changing his bandages. It was cute.”

“It was?”

“Mmhm.”

Kon licks his lips. “I wasn’t sure, the way he acted…”

“I don’t think he’s used to such attention. But don’t worry, he wants us, that I’m sure of.”

“I know that, I can feel it.”

“Feel it?” Tim’s seen it in Jason’s eyes. In the furtive looks he spares them whenever he thinks they’re not looking at him, and the way his eyes dart away when they do. The way he blushed so prettily when Tim ran his hand over his chest under the pretense of checking the progress of his broken ribs.

“Of course, can’t you?” 

Propping himself up on his elbows against Kon-El’s chest, Tim looks down into his lover’s face. Blue slitted eyes stare back up at him; out of Jason’s presence Kon doesn’t feel the need to hide anything. “No, I don’t… how could I?”

Kon takes hold of his left hand, pushing it more firmly against his breast, right over his heart that beats in time with Tim’s own. He looks surprised, and fondly exasperated. “For someone so clever, sometimes you don’t listen as closely as you should, Tim. I’ve felt him ever since you saved his life.”

“Since…” He closes his eyes, feeling Kon’s gentle urging in his head, the whisper of his guiding hand at the edges of Tim’s thoughts. Without question he hands over his control, letting the dragon show him where to look.

After almost a full century of being in each others hearts, Tim and Kon’s bond is forged in steel. It feels like a strong chain, woven of metal and magic, blood and flesh. Tim sinks into the familiar feeling of it as he would a hot bath, muscles easing out and breathing slowing. 

_Ba-bump._ They breathe together. _Ba-bump_. They live together. Magic and lifeforce intertwined.

And there, centred in his own chest, Tim feels it. A tiny trace of magic that runs out from their bond, a thin filament of energy rising upwards through all the floors of the tower, from the spare room they now sleep in to the master bedroom at the top, occupied by their guest.

“Oh.” He whispers, tracing it with curious brushes of his mind. “I didn’t realise… I…” Tim swallows, holding that thin connection against his inner eye for inspection. “The spell I used to save his life, it didn’t just tether his soul back to his own body…”

“But also to you. And because we’re joined, to me also.” Kon nods, hand resting still over Tim’s. 

If Jason agrees to stay with them and be theirs they would have done something like this eventually, but to feel it already there makes Tim’s toes curl with the familiar thrill of new knowledge being placed into his hands. “The notes about the spell didn’t mention a side-effect like this.”

“I’ve heard you say that before.” Kon’s smile is all teeth as Tim finally opens his eyes again to look at him. “You really didn’t know?”

He shakes his head. “If I did I might have been more cautious, but it makes sense. Tethering a soul takes a lot of strength from the spell-wielder - more than almost any other spell I’ve ever tried. That degree of magic always leaves a mark in some way.”

In fact it had taken so much power that Tim had actually fainted for a moment after its completion. Kon had to feed him some of his own strength before Tim was able to remain upright as they carried Jason inside to patch the wounds his spell couldn’t heal. In the aftermath of that chaos - calming Kon down and explaining why he’d saved Jason’s life - somehow Tim had missed this.

That’s what he gets for playing around with unfamiliar magicks.

“Does it bother you?” Kon asks.

“No. No, it’s interesting. It’s…” Tim stretches his touch further along the delicate thread, aware in a way he wasn’t before of Jason’s presence. Now he can feel where he is, what he’s doing (sleeping currently), alongside a vague sense of his emotions. “I wonder if he can feel us too.”

“I thought so before, when we were bathing. But then he seemed to intentionally look away. I wasn’t sure what I did.” Kon narrows his eyes, his hunger and need to possess stealing into Tim’s heart, feeding him those same emotions. “That’s why I asked if you think I should give him something from the hoard. He liked the staff I made but it didn’t seem enough.”

Tim bites his lip, an intriguing idea has started to take form inside his head. “I’m not saying you can’t try it, but I don’t think gold and jewels are truly what he wants.”

“Then what, weapons? I have those. Or armour.”

He sits up on Kon-El’s lap, thighs gripping his hips as the dragon talks. “It’s not a physical thing he desires most, but a purpose. A place to belong.”

“Gold would be easier.” Kon complains, though his determination doesn’t waver. The hand he placed on Tim’s ass stays where it is, though the one on his chest slides down to his hip as he moves. “How do you know that?”

“He told me. More or less.”

“More or less.” Kon repeats, then cocks his head as he senses the outline of Tim’s intentions. The movement is inherently reptilian, reminding Tim of the small lizards that can sometimes be found sunbathing on the lower stones of the tower. “What are you doing?”

A smirk slides across Tim’s lips as he rocks his hips forwards, holding the connection between the three of them close in his mind’s eye. He teases it, opens it up, as underneath him Kon’s cock starts to stiffen with renewed interest and a finger slides between his ass cheeks. “Testing a theory.” 

“A theory?”

“Mm, you’ll see.”

 

*

 

In his bed, Jason tosses and turns.

His dreams earlier this night have been vague, a patchwork of past moments thrown together in no particular order, their tangled jumble almost certainly not one he’ll remember on waking, even if he cared to. Jason would be hard pressed to say exactly when this changed, only that what it changed into has become all-consuming.

_Pale skin. Long fingers. Small, slim hips gripped in large hands with strange and infinite gentleness. Those hands can crush bones into powder, somehow he knows this, but instead they’re careful and loving in their hold as they guide him. No not him, or is it him? Or…_

Jason turns his head against his pillow, a soft moan escaping his lips.

_Tight heat surrounding him. A hard cock driving into him. Both and one at once. He can feel lips pressing against his, though he’s not sure which mouth is his own. There are two pairs of eyes looking back at him; one pair stormy blue grey, the others bright as the sky on a summer’s day. He can feel them, hungry, their lust building as they move together; mouths pressing in heartfelt kisses. Deeper, harder. So good he never wants it to stop, never wants -_

Jason’s eyes snap open as he gasps, rocketing up in bed before falling back on top of the furs with a pained hiss. His hand flies to his ribs, pushing carefully to make sure nothing has worsened there as he tries to make sense of where he is and what he’s doing. The dream lingers on his consciousness, a heavy and pretty thing that is slow to fade away as most dreams do.

Between his legs the heavy weight of his cock is stiff as a board, straining against the fabric of his breeches.

“Fuck…” Jason shudders, swallowing hard. He hasn’t had a dream like that since… since well, ever. Certainly not since he was a young teenager, first discovering what pleasures could be found in flesh.

He reaches down, undoing the laces of his breeches before slipping his right hand inside and grasping his cock. There’s no way he can get back to sleep worked up like this, so taking care of it is the easiest path. Jason bites his lip as he starts to stroke himself, moving his hand in sure steady beats. His cock is already fairly dripping from pre-cum, so Jason doesn’t even need spit to ease the passage of his hand at this point.

What had been that dream? Jason closes his eyes against the dark, trying to pull back the heated vision of writhing bodies, pale skin and blue eyes. Gods, he couldn’t… he’d never thought his mind could conjure images so vivid. So _real_. 

And the feelings that came with it… the sensation of being taken at the same time as taking someone else… Jason has played both roles before in the intimate encounters he’s known, but never so perfectly been able to recall the experience of both at once. Even now he fails to grasp it as clearly as he did in his dream, but enough memory lingers that it doesn’t take much time at all for him to gasp and come all over his fingers and stomach.

He lies back, draping his left arm across his brow as the sweat dries on his skin, and only then does it become clear who the faces of the participants of his dream belonged to: Tim and Conner.

Jason’s eyes fly back open as he stares up at the ceiling. His skin, already flushed from the act of coming, turns a deeper shade of red as a mixture of hunger and dismay burns down into his flesh.

He knew he’d taken a fancy to both of them, but to the extent he could concoct such a fantasy in his head is unbelievable. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so intense a lust for anyone he’s ever met before, and there’s still weeks yet before he’ll be fit enough to leave the tower for other climes; longer if he doesn’t heal up quick enough before the winter snows come. 

If he can’t keep control himself then living here is going to become a very uncomfortable situation indeed.

“Great,” he sighs, casting a look towards the staircase door as if the ghost of vengeance himself is about to burst through it, or worse, his two hosts. “I’m fucked.”

There’s no way he’s getting back to sleep tonight.

Taking a deep breath, Jason eases himself out of bed, taking up his staff from where he’d left it leant against the wall beside the bed while keeping his messy right hand held out in front him as he goes in search of a rag to clean it with; something that Tim and Conner will never miss because he’s going to have to burn it on the fireplace afterwards to hide the evidence. Eventually, after stumbling and almost falling over three times in the dark, he finds a spare strip of linen from the bandages Tim used to splint his leg with yesterday and uses it to clean his hand and stomach before throwing it into the fire. The fabric burns readily, and just like that all signs of his indiscretion are gone except for the warm feeling in his bones and the coil of shame in his belly.

“Get a hold of yourself.” Jason mutters. He wonders why this can never happen to him when he meets anyone free and available; why he has to be attracted to the forbidden fruit, as it were. It’s really not fair, but then again, what is? He’s always prided himself on being a realist - a necessity to survive as he did when he was a child - and this is just another situation he’s going to have to face head on.

Turning away from the fireplace, Jason surveys the room. Why he almost fell flat on his face is clear to see even in the dark; this level of the tower is a mess, and it’s not the first time Jason has noticed it. It is however, the first time he’s been irritated enough to feel the urge to do something about the situation. He has no understanding how Tim and Conner can live this way, or how anyone could, with books, papers and all manner of other things draped haphazardly onto the furniture and spilling across the floor. 

Maybe it’s the undercurrent of shame he still feels that drives him to act, or maybe it’s the restless energy that won’t let him go back to sleep, but putting himself to work in doing something productive will be a far better use of his time than sitting and brooding; less likely to end with Jason driving himself crazy as well.

Limping forwards, he bends carefully down and starts to gather fallen objects off the floor. 

 

*

 

The next morning Tim barely recognises the master bedroom when he steps into it. He’d come upstairs filled with impatience, with mischief, a master ready to find out if the results of his experiment had come to fruition.

He hadn’t expected to find this.

“Jason,” he says slowly, looking at the tall man laid half asleep with his head pillowed against his arms on Tim’s writing desk. “Did you clean up in here?”

Jason cracks open one eye to look at him. He grunts, and his answer is deservedly obtuse for Tim asking such an obvious question, “Might’ve.”

Tim steps carefully forwards, marvelling that he doesn’t have to do his usual hop, skip and a jump to avoid the mess on the floor. “Why?”

“Because it needed doing.” Jason yawns. “Figure it’s the least I can do to start repaying you for your help.”

“I told you you didn’t need to -” Tim starts to say, then promptly shuts his mouth as he remembers Jason’s insistence that he pay them back from before. A good thing, because that one visible eye starts to narrow at him in warning. “... I don’t think I’ve ever seen this room so tidy.”

“Someone had to do it.” Jason shrugs, turning his head so he’s looking past Tim’s shoulders. “Surprised one of you hasn’t broken his neck from tripping over something before now.”

“We got used to it.” he keeps stepping forwards, pleased nonetheless even if it wasn’t exactly what he was hoping to find this morning. Tim touches his hand to Jason’s shoulder, feeling the bare skin of his back beneath his fingers since the knight did not wear his shirt to sleep in. There are a network of scars visible on his flesh that Tim hungers to ask him about (and touch and taste), as well as the one that runs across his scalp to give him that white streak in his hair. “Were you up all night doing this?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I had this, er… this dream that…” Pink steals across Jason’s cheeks as he turns his face quickly and hides it against his arms. “Doesn’t matter.”

That’s good. It means he doesn’t see the smirk that curves Tim’s lips as he moves his hand in soft circles against Jason’s back, pressing in against firm muscle. The action feels natural to him, as does the now realised connection between them.“Thank you, Jason.”

“It was nothing.” Comes the slightly muffled reply before Jason sits up properly. He looks like he wants to stretch, but daren’t because of the strain it would do to his ribs. “Least I could do.”

He hasn’t tried to shrug Tim’s hand off of him, Tim wonders if he realises that yet. “Conner’s making us breakfast. He’ll be up soon.”

“I could do that too, you know. To help.” Jason runs a hand back through his dishevelled hair. “Since I can move up and down the tower now. I probably couldn’t carry anything, but I can make a decent meal.”

“I wouldn’t ask -”

“I’m offering.” Jason says sharply, with that same fascinating determination he displayed before; that defensive pride that won’t allow him to just accept help without giving something in return. Of course such an attitude isn’t unusual. Not even among nobility, who often traded favours with each as a means of currency more valuable than the gold most of them had in spades, but it’s the straightforward manner in which Jason confronts him that has Tim’s interest. 

He said he was adopted, but he didn’t say from where. Yet even so Tim finds a clue in the rough undercurrent to Jason’s speech - beneath the learned proper pronunciation of the aristocrat - that might give him away. It was an accent that had been even more obvious when Jason had been caught up in the fever dreams of those first few days, mumbling in his sleep; the cadence of a commoner. 

Tim might have been cut off from the world for a long time, and before that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’d had the opportunity to know peasant boys all the same. He knew how hard their lives could be, especially when they were orphans, and how they rarely expected something for nothing. If the current Lord Wayne (Bruce as Jason had named him) had adopted a street child as his own that was even more fascinating than his apparent refusal to follow the common law of blood before everything else. Gotham as the city was now sounded like it might be a far more interesting place than it was the last time Tim saw it.

“I know, I just don’t want you to strain yourself.” Tim brushes his thumb up against Jason’s neck, and this time the motion is enough to make Jason visibly shudder as he recognises the touch. He blushes a deeper red than before, and Tim catches the edge of desire through their thin bond the same as he did last night. It makes him hunger with the urge to kiss Jason, to claim him; a century of being bonded to Kon-El has been enough to turn Tim dragon-like in that respect. 

He bites back his own desire, even though he now knows he could show Jason it through the bond in a way he could never deny. There’s still many secrets to share with him, but before they do Tim wants to be sure about Jason, sure that he wants them enough that he won’t run or decry them as monsters once he learns the truth.

“I can handle it.”

“Then after breakfast I’ll show you the kitchen, and we can see how we go from there.”

“Good.” Jason swallows, and now that Tim’s paying attention he can feel the relief that accompanies it. “It’ll be good to get out of this room for a while.”

“You know you’re free to explore any door in the tower that isn’t locked.” Tim reminds him, humming as he presses his thumb deeper in against Jason’s neck., then adds, “And help yourself to anything you’d like within.”

Jason stills, and there’s another flash of deep _hunger_ in him before he shrugs off Tim’s hand, forcing himself to his feet and limping back to the bed with the help of his staff. There he sits before pulling on the same shirt he wore yesterday. “Dangerous words, little dragon charmer. If I were a thief I could clean you out.”

“You can’t steal what is freely given.” He corrects him, mourning the loss of that muscled back and chest from sight. A warm flush of pleasure runs through Tim at the newest nickname Jason bestows upon him. It’s far better than the ones he used yesterday.

A brush of interest from Kon shakes him out of it, his lover is curious to know what made him feel so as he makes his way up to them. _Later_ , Tim promises Kon, before heading to the door to open it for him.

Jason’s eyes stay on him as he moves, and there’s surprise there that Tim knows exactly when Kon would appear. And - Tim bites his lip as Kon raises his eyebrows at him when their eyes meet. Admittedly now that he knows the taste of Jason’s mind - his _soul_ \- it’s hard to stop himself from making use of that bond to look into the knight’s feelings all the time.

 _Reproach_ follows from Kon, and Tim nods a little. If he keeps on this way then Jason will notice something is up sooner rather than later, even if he is naturally blind to magic. Tim forces himself to withdraw before making way for Kon to carry the huge tray from the kitchen into the bedroom.

His lover’s surprise echoes his own once he gets a clear view of the room. “Wow, what happened in here?”

“Jason cleaned.” Tim tells him with a grin, while Jason nods awkwardly in the background. “He saw how much of a mess it was and volunteered his services.”

“It was nothing.” Jason says at once, “Happy to help.”

Kon marvels at the change in the once cluttered room a moment longer. Though meticulous over the organisation of his hoard, he otherwise is as nonchalant over the presence of mess in the other parts of their home as Tim is at noticing it in the first place. “I like it. It’s… roomier, somehow.”

“True.” Tim laughs, “I forgot how big the space up here actually is.”

At their words Jason starts to relax again, a smile slipping onto his own lips. “You two are a little hopeless at cleaning up after yourselves, aren’t you?”

“Noble.” Tim points at himself, “And Kon is just hopeless in general.”

“Hey.” Kon snorts, elbowing him hard enough that Tim almost falls. “I’m not that bad. At least I remember to eat every day, unlike some.”

“You forget to eat?” Jason asks, sounding incredulous this time as he looks at Tim.

Now it’s Tim’s turn to be embarrassed. “Not on purpose. I just sometimes… get preoccupied. When I’m working on something.”

“It’s worse than he makes it sound.” Kon says blatantly, ignoring Tim’s warning shove back at him through their bond. “Sometimes he forgets to sleep too, especially when I’m away. He’s only been so good about it lately because you’re here.”

“Gods.” Jason actually laughs, and it’s a lovely and warm sound that soothes Tim’s irritation at Kon when he hears it. “That must drive you crazy.”

“More than you know.”

“No wonder you’re so tiny.” Jason says to Tim, and the look of commiseration he shares with Kon over him feels breathtakingly natural.

 _He’s ours, he has to be ours_. He thinks at Kon. The exact words won’t travel, but the sentiment will.

“I am not tiny.” Tim says out loud, raising his nose a little into the air. “And if you’re done talking about me, there is food here now, you know.”

“Yeah, you are.” Both larger men grin at him as Jason talks, “But good point. Eat up, tiny Tim.”

“You first, Ser Todd.” Tim shoots back, though without real venom.

Breakfast this morning is bread, with bacon charred almost black. Both come from one of the nearby hamlets, traded for rather than hunted like they do most of their supplies. Kon is still grinning as he sets the tray down next to Jason on the bed before settling himself on the floor. At once Jason’s gaze dips down to him - at the deliberate brush of Kon’s foot against his.

Tim smirks inwardly as he sits beside Jason on the other side of the mattress, accepting his own meal when the knight hands a plate to him with a pointed look. He’s certainly not the only one fighting the urge to do something drastic to their guest today, not after last night. He teases Kon with that feeling before starting to eat.

So used to eating meat burnt the way dragons prefer it, Tim completely misses the look of distaste present on Jason’s face before he bites into his own sandwich.

 

*

 

Being left alone in the kitchen after Tim shows him the way is a relief to Jason. His dream last night had made it hard for him to meet either of his host’s eyes this morning, though the conversation they’d shared had been surprisingly natural and easy for him to slip into. 

He still can’t believe Tim is someone who forgets to eat. That’s such an alien thought to Jason - who never passes an opportunity to partake when it comes up - that it actually makes him feel a little ill to imagine someone so small and seemingly thin going without food. Now that he’s cooking he’s filled with the strong urge to make sure that it won’t happen again, even if he has to force each meal down Tim’s throat.

Conner will be glad of it he’s sure, though Jason also can’t believe him either; not noticing one is living in a mess is equally alien to him. He can’t help but think he was right, they’re both kind of hopeless at looking after themselves, and that thought is vexing as well as oddly endearing.

Left to his own devices Jason sets about familiarising himself with the kitchen - located a good five floors down the tower - so that he can plan on what to make them for dinner. 

It’s a good size, the same as most rooms in the tower, containing a large stove and table, as well as a cooling larder. Dried herbs hang from hooks in the ceiling above; though for what purpose Jason can’t imagine, since he doesn’t think he’s tasted any of them in Tim and Conner’s cooking so far. The stove itself is a clever thing, with the pipe feeding into one wall so the smoke leaves the kitchen for the air outside, and Jason spends a few minutes examining it before starting to open cupboards and seeing what else he can find. 

Dirty dishes, that’s what he finds. Alarmed at how large a collection of pots there are in dire need of washing, Jason has to break open the water barrel standing in the corner to scrub them clean before he can think of doing anything else. He tosses the dirty water out of the window when he’s done with it, then moves on to take inventory of what ingredients there are in the larder so he knows what it is he has to work with when it comes to meals here.

Meat is plentiful, mostly game; venison, rabbit, duck and so forth. But there are some more domesticated varieties like salted pork and mutton to be found as well. Outside of that it’s mostly bread in the larder, alongside grain, and not much at all in the way of vegetables.

Jason grimaces as he mentally makes a list of what can probably be scavenged from the forest outside. He’ll have to ask Conner to see if he can find and bring him back more ingredients the next time he goes out hunting.

Given what’s on hand a simple pot of stew seems the way to go. Jason takes a rabbit from the larder, dices the meat and then throws it in the pan with water and some oats to thicken the broth, before adding in a few of the herbs hanging from the ceiling to liven up the flavour. It’s nothing too impressive, but it will definitely be an improvement on what he’s being eating here so far.

Maybe if he sets a good enough example he can even impart a few good habits on Tim and Conner when it comes to cooking and cleaning before he leaves.

And he does have to leave, as much as he feel the temptation to do otherwise. As much as he is starting to enjoy living here and the company of his hosts, it’s not his home. He can’t stay, he has places to go and things to do.

 _What things? What places?_ another part of Jason asks. He has precious few friends, and he hasn’t been back to Gotham in almost two years. He drifts from place to place, taking on new quests to keep himself occupied and feeling like he’s doing something useful with his life. It could be nice, for once, to settle and stay among people he feels he can count on for more than a week here and there.

And he can count on Tim and Conner, can’t he? It feels that way. Jason can’t explain why or how, but it does. He feels like he trusts them, even though he doesn’t really know them. It’s so strange but sometimes… he shakes his head. He’s imagining things.

Anyway, they might be happy for him to linger here for now, but there’s still a dragon attached to this place, and Jason’s not so sure he’ll be to remain around such a creature, no matter how much Tim assures him that he’s safe now. A nightmare of black leather scales and needle sharp teeth still haunts his dreams, as does a vision of a huge blue eye with a black sliver of pupil.

Blue slitted eyes…

Jason goes very still, feeling his heart start to beat more quickly. He thinks for a moment he saw those eyes in his dream; not the nightmare one, but the heated vision of sex from last night. Yet - perhaps it’s his mind mixing the two up. Conner and Kon, two similar sounding names. 

Yet… couldn’t it...

No, he’s being stupid; thinking too much. Jason pushes himself back up to his feet from where he’s sat at the table. He’ll go explore the rest of tower as he was told he was able, that will take his mind off such thoughts. 

After making sure there’s enough wood in the stove to keep burning for at least the next few hours, Jason leaves the kitchen for the spiral staircase and starts to head further down. 

Despite the warnings from Conner and Tim, Jason soon discovers that very few of the rooms in the tower are actually locked. In fact only two are, and considering the height of the tower and the number of floors within it that’s far less than he expected.

(The thought crosses his mind that if he wanted to he could probably pick those locks, but only for a moment. Everyone is entitled to a few secrets, he figures, and since Tim is a mage it’s better he doesn’t run the risk of there being enchantments placed on the doors.)

Most of the rooms he finds seem to be little used, which isn’t surprising considering that only two people live here on a regular basis. Those spaces are dusty and filled with oddments; bric-a-brac that has been deposited within with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Jason finds piled up furniture, old clothes that have almost rotted away to nothing - perhaps from the previous owner of the tower - and even children’s toys and tapestries tucked away into corners. Enough that - if he let himself - Jason thinks could let himself get lost in these rooms for hours sorting through their contents. But he doesn’t. Not yet. He wants to see everything else the tower has to offer first before he considers taking on such a task.

The library is an exciting find, if not an unexpected one considering how often he’s seen Tim reading over the past couple of weeks. Books are piled from floor to ceiling, weighing down the shelves of old bowed bookcases. Some are filled with pages that are yellowed and crinkling, held together only be their worn leather bound covers, and Jason touches these reverently, bending his head to inhale the scent of what could be centuries worth of knowledge contained within. Even the newer tomes seem old, and if Jason wanted to take a guess he’d say there have been no new additions to the collection for at least five years, which sounds about right for how old he thinks Tim and Conner are. 

They can’t have been here all that long, and with so many old books here to occupy him it’s no surprise that Tim hasn’t tried to acquire anything more. He can’t be through even half of them yet, surely.

Most are books of knowledge; spellbooks, and these Jason very carefully does _not_ touch. He might be blind to magic, but Alfred had always warned him that when spells were put to paper they still held some of their power. It was best to be wary, lest he find himself turned into a frog or something worse by a poorly contained incantation. Magic is a living thing, it’s power, and power always in some way wants to be used, especially by the unwary.

Jason finds himself doubting very much that any of the spells in these books have ever managed to take Tim by surprise.

After some more exploration Jason finally comes across some writing a little more to his taste by one of the windows, and safer besides. Fairy tales, collections of myths and legends. Jason chooses two of these books and tucks them beneath his arm, carrying them over to the door and setting them down on the steps just outside the library’s threshold so that they’ll be easily found when he’s on his way back upstairs. Tempting as it is to spend the rest of the day in here now, there’s still more of the tower he has yet to see.

It’s strange as he explores lower that he doesn’t run into Tim or Conner at all, but Jason supposes they must have remained upstairs, or perhaps they’d gone out while he was cooking.

It isn’t until he finds a couple extra bedrooms (in-between more cluttered storerooms) that it first occurs to Jason that the tower’s layout is strange. In most places he lived the kitchen at least would have been at the very bottom of the building, not halfway up. Similarly it would make more sense for the bath to be located lower down, with all the bedrooms together on the upper levels. Whoever built this place seemed to have a very strange sense of interior design.

While thinking this, Jason opens the door to one of the bedrooms and finds himself suddenly filled with the strangest feeling of deja vu as he steps inside. Unlike all the other rooms he’s found so far this one looks like it’s actually in use - if the disarray of bedding and lack of dust on the floors and objects within is anything to go by. 

This must be where Tim and Conner sleep, he realises.

Jason feels a little intrusive as he hobbles forward, but then Conner and Tim both did say that he was welcome to go in any room that wasn’t locked. If they find him here and are offended then it’s their own fault, they shouldn’t say such things to him if they don’t mean them. Jason glances at the open window before approaching the bed, which is covered in furs just like the one he sleeps in at the top of the tower. At the foot of it is a sheepskin that -

_feels so good against his bare skin, rubbing against his thighs as he moves and rolls his hips_

Jason goes deadly still, biting down hard on his lip. His cock twitches as he looks at the bed, stiffening in his breeches. A warm smell lingers here, so thick he can almost taste it on tongue.

His face colours as he realises what it is, and just like that Jason finds himself retreating, stumbling back at the heat that wants to rise at him. The knowledge that this is Tim and Conner’s bed, that they sleep _together_ in it in every sense of the word brings his dream from last night rocketing back to the forefront of his mind, and suddenly it’s like he can’t get out of the room quick enough.

Jason pulls the door shut behind him, leaning heavily on his staff as he hears the latch click back into place. Gods help him… he thinks he may actually be in serious trouble here. It’s all too strange, why does he feel this way? Is he going crazy, or is there something at work here that he doesn’t know about? He has to figure it out.

Fresh air. That will help. He needs to be outside, maybe there he can think clearly.

Jason hurries down the staircase, moving as quickly as he can and ignoring the last few doors he passes as he searches for the exit from the tower. It had been invisible from the outside when he’d been scouting the place out - back when he still thought Tim was a lady in need of rescuing - but surely it must exist on the inside. How else could Tim and Conner ever leave?

He keeps walking, down and down, round the spiralling staircase and hating how much closer the walls seem all of sudden. After a certain level there are no more windows or arrow slits to light the way, just slow burning candles, and things become even more claustrophobic when Jason finally reaches what seems to be the ground floor of the tower.

No door, he observes immediately. Just an empty chamber of smooth curved stone. It makes no sense, there has to be a way out here somewhere. Jason starts to pace, feeling around the curved walls for some secret mechanism that will let him outside. He tries pulling the candlesticks on the walls too, but nothing moves, and it’s about the time he’s starting to feel truly frustrated that he notices a dark shape in the middle of the floor: a trapdoor, made of wood and bolted shut from the outside.

Bolted, but without a lock. 

Jason hesitates, then steps towards it. They said he could go anywhere that wasn’t locked, and bolted isn’t locked. If they didn’t want him going down there then wouldn’t it be fastened with a padlock or chain of some kind? 

It takes careful effort for Jason to lever himself down to the ground - his leg is aching terribly again from all the exercise - and reach for the bolt, but he manages it. His fingers close on the cold steel, then hesitate once more.

“Skeletons in the closet.” He murmurs to himself, then makes to draw it back.

Before he can though, a voice interrupts him from behind. “Jason.”

Jason jumps, cursing as his staff falls from his open hand and clatters onto the floor, rolling away out of his reach. Behind him stands Conner, who has somehow appeared with eerie silence from the stairway.

No one that big should be able to move so quietly. 

(Except Bruce. Bruce always could.)

“Conner! You… fuck, you startled me.” his hand pulls back quickly from the bolt, as if from a hornets nest. “How did you…”

“Sorry.” Conner says, and it sounds - _feels_ \- sincere. “I didn’t mean to.” He steps forward and scoops the staff up from the floor, before crouching down beside Jason and glancing at the hatch. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Jason says quickly. “I was just exploring. Thought I’d see how far I could get before dinner’s ready.”

Conner cocks his head, then his expression relaxes into a smile, even as his eyes seem to pierce into Jason’s soul. “Well you made it pretty far. Though I’m glad I caught you before you tried to go down into the cellar.”

“Why’s that?”

Conner shrugs, “There’s a ladder to get in and out, and with your leg you might find it tough to climb back up.”

It sounds reasonable enough, but still the hairs on the back of Jason’s neck rise up with some innate knowledge. _Lie_. It’s a lie, at the same time as it’s the truth. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. There’s something down there in the cellar, something that Conner doesn’t want him to see.

( _Yet._ ) 

The timing of his appearance doesn't feel mere coincidence.

“Right. Okay. Good thing then.” He agrees slowly, licking his lips. This is the part where Bruce would tell him to be careful, to play along. Jason agrees with that advice. “So why did you come looking for me?”

“I found an old pack of cards.” Conner explains, and that rings true. “I thought we could have a game. Tim always wipes the floor with me, you know. He cheats.”

Jason can’t suppress a snort, despite his misgivings. “Yeah, I’d believe it.” He arches one of his eyebrows, “So you think I’ll be less of a challenge?”

“I don’t know. But I think it’ll be fun to find out, if you’re willing.” Conner leans down, offering Jason his hand to get back up onto his feet. After a moment’s hesitation he takes it, heart skipping a beat like always when Conner hauls him up to his feet in a prodigious display of strength and hands his staff back to him.

Strength like that… his almost suspicion from before rears its head back up again, and Jason swallows, feeling the sweat on his palms when they slip against the carved wood. He covers it up by saying the first thing his mind leaps to, “Care to make it interesting?”

“In what way?”

“I have some money. Not much, but enough that we could play for it if you have some coin also.”

Conner’s smile is wide and very toothy as soon as Jason says it. “I think I can scrape something together.”

Jason nods, and starts to hobble after him back to the stairs before another thought occurs, drawing him again to a halt. “Conner.”

The younger man stops and looks back at him, “What is it?”

He’ll ask this question. If Conner won’t answer it, then he’ll worry. “I was wondering, how the hell do you get out of this place? I’ve been from top to bottom and couldn’t find the exit.”

Conner look at him, surprise in his eyes as if he’d never considered that to be information Jason would want to know. He turns his head and nods towards a portion of the wall, as blank and indistinct as any of the others. “Stand there and say the word _Nepo_. Then the door will appear.”

Relief floods Jason. “Great. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

If Jason had anything to fear from these two surely Conner wouldn’t have given him the means with which to leave, right? Jason grimaces. His gut says no, but his head still wonders. He casts one more glance back at the trapdoor before it leaves his sight.

There are mysteries surrounding these two, ones he now resolves himself to find the answers to, sooner rather than later. Starting with whatever it is down in that cellar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /gently nabs Zatanna's backwards magic talk because too lazy to come up with proper spell words


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks, hope you're having a nice weekend! Finally we're almost done with this one with just the epilogue to go, which should be up in a few weeks since I have a few pieces that have specific posting dates attached to them that have to go up first. Hope you enjoy, and as always thanks for reading :)

It is the middle of the night when Jason slips down to the tower’s ground floor again, exactly one week after his initial suspicions took root.

A week that seemed to crawl by, even as he kept himself busy with his self-appointed tasks around the building, despite Tim’s constant assurances that he really didn’t need to do anything to repay them for their kindness when it was their fault he was hurt in the first place. Jason was too stubborn - and too bored otherwise - to stop. Cooking and cleaning filled his daylight hours, while his evenings were taken up by the eager attentions of his two hosts.

They talked, they joked. They played games and shared stories. A pleasant existence when Jason allowed it to be, caught up in the warmth and easy affection of the two young men whose home he had found himself in. He was enamoured with them both, he knew and admitted it now, if only to himself. Caught on watching the elegant play and twist of Tim’s wrist when he tossed dice, the way he always mouthed at the end of his quill when he was lost in thought at his studies; the hearty sound of Conner’s deep booming laughter whenever a good joke was shared, and the gentle care he showed towards his lover and Jason both, despite his immense strength.

But no matter how good things seemed, underneath it all, always, was the mystery of exactly who they are, and what it is that lurks beneath the trapdoor at the base of the tower.

Jason finds things through his explorations. Small things, that only serve to make that puzzle more perplexing.

The coins he wins from Conner during their card games are engraved with the names and faces of kings and queens long gone. The clothes he finds tucked away into closets and chests while he cleans are all out of fashion by decades. And, perhaps most damning of all, are the papers. Aged and delicate pieces of parchment tucked into the shelves of the library, written on in a spidery hand that resembles Tim’s from all the times Jason has spied over his shoulder while he writes at his desk.

Coincidence, perhaps, from one who lived here before. An ancestor’s work, brought from the home Tim left to live in peace with the drake who guarded these woods. But gut instinct tells him no, and as his older brother and father both taught him, instinct was rarely wrong.

Then there are the dreams. Dreams of the wind rushing beneath dark wings, of reptilian blue eyes. Dreams of skin against skin, delicate long-fingered hands brushing his lips while strong arms pin him down and hold him in place with ease as their bodies writhe together on the bed.

Jason’s not sure which is the worse out of the two, but in the name of getting a good night’s sleep he could do without either.

The easiest path would be to ask them. To demand an explanation and assuage his fears that way, but Jason finds himself reluctant to do so without good solid proof of what he feels he knows in his heart. A niggling, doubting voice at the back of his mind warns him that if he were to accuse Tim and Conner of lying to him, only to be proven wrong… 

The truth is, Jason is in too deep with his feelings for them both to wish to lose that connection. But if he can find the truth on his own without having to involve them, then he can move forwards with confidence. Whatever path that forces him to take.

It’s past the witching hour when he leaves his bed. Outside the window the sky is pitch black, and the clouds hide the moon and stars from sight.

He reaches under the bed, retrieving the small bag of supplies he gathered for this night and slinging it over his shoulder. Candles, the means with which to light them, and his own dagger, just in case. His sword and guns he leaves where they are with his travelling pack, taking up the staff Conner made him instead to help him in his journey downwards.

The spiral staircase seems to go on forever, and is more treacherous in the dark than during the day. It forces Jason to take his time despite his sense of urgency. His ribs may have strengthened this past week, but his leg still remains a slowly healing problem. The soft tapping of his staff against the stone steps is the only sound aside from his own strained breathing.

When he finally reaches the base (holding his breath as he passes the floor where Tim and Conner sleep), the trapdoor sits as innocuously in the center of the room as it did the first time he saw it. A plain square of wood held closed by a large iron bolt screwed into the paved stone floor.

Carefully, Jason lowers himself down beside it with more ease than he did a week ago, but he still hesitates a moment longer despite his confidence he is alone, sparing one final glance to the stairs before reaching to draw the bolt back. 

There’s no sound, no interruption. The bolt slides easily with the motion of his fingers, and Jason heaves in a deep breath before reaching for the metal hoop fixed to the center of the wood to heave open the trap door itself. The door settles back against its hinges, giving way to a view of pitch blackness below - though Jason can see the top of the ladder Conner mentioned attached by metal hooks to the thick edge of the stone floor beneath.

It’s good he came prepared for that eventuality, though he won’t be able to light any of his candles until he reaches the bottom, as he’ll need to use both hands for the climb down on account of his busted leg. Jason takes a deep breath before swinging his feet out over the edge. He could try throwing his staff down ahead of him, but then he’d have no way of carrying it back up. He’ll have to leave it here and hope he’ll be able to limp his through whatever he finds down there without it.

Jason grits his teeth against the pain in his leg as he fits both feet into the rungs of the ladder, then slowly begins to climb down. He considers closing the trap door after him, but then decides that it would be pointless to do so: his staff on the floor and the open latch will be clue enough to where he went if either Tim or Conner wake up and come downstairs. He doesn’t like cutting off the view of his way out either.

The climb down seems to take forever.

Step after painful step soon has Jason sweating, despite his valiant attempts to hold most of his weight up with his arms whenever he moves his left foot down a rung. The basement seems impossibly deep, the ladder impossibly long, and eventually the faint light of the room above becomes a small square comparable to the distant sight of the moon in the night sky.

Suddenly, Conner’s reasoning that he shouldn’t go down because it would difficult for him to get back up out of here doesn’t feel like such an excuse anymore.

But just when he’s on the cusp of changing his mind and climbing back up instead, Jason’s feet hit solid ground. He lets out a sigh of relief, but remains hanging onto the ladder with both arms for a minute longer as his left leg feels ready to buckle under him.

Darkness is all he can see at first beyond the shaft of light in which he stands. So as soon as he has his breath back, Jason reaches to draw out one of the candles and the matches he brought with him. The wick catches, and what he sees beyond the dim darkness at the base of the ladder takes his breath away.

 _Gold._ Not just piles but heaps of it, like small rolling hills running back into the darkness. Jewels glint, scattered amidst the mass, all the colours of the rainbow: sapphires, rubies, emeralds and diamonds to name a few. Jason can’t see far beyond the small range of light the candle gives off, but there has to be a way to light the basement properly somewhere around here, because who would want a treasure room where they couldn’t see all of their valuables?

_A dragon, maybe. That’s who._

Jason swallows. His left hand tightens on the ladder rung as his right grips the candle, carefully tilting it so that the hot wax doesn’t run back onto his fingers. Dragon’s have hoards, everyone knows that. It’s half of what drives so many to die in the pursuit of killing them - if they aren’t dedicated to the honourable rescue of a fair maiden or the promise of glory anyway. It’s also the reason why dragons are known to attack castles sometimes, drawn by the promise of gathered wealth.

This is Kon-El’s hoard. It has to be. Kon-El’s and… maybe Conner’s too. Jason’s mind echoes the two names together until they become virtually indistinguishable from one another. It seems so obvious, sitting right there in plain sight. A man with strength beyond measure, and eyes too bright to possibly be human.

But he has to be sure.

Carefully Jason limps forwards, gritting his teeth each time he puts weight on his leg. More riches reveal themselves to him. Not just coins and jewels, but weapons too. Ornate swords and axes too delicately crafted to be anything but decorative. Suits of armour as well, likely made for ceremonial purposes rather than warfare. He sees crowns and diadems, and eventually finds a gold sceptre that makes a good substitute for his staff to lean on, making it easier for him to navigate between the piles of riches.

There’s enough wealth here to buy cities, perhaps even a small kingdom. Jason has never seen anything like it.

Then he hears something slither in the dark ahead of him. 

Jason freezes in place, his heart thudding a mile a minute inside his chest. He tilts his head, straining his ears to hear the sound of breathing. Slow, languorous. Too deep and long to be human.

He takes a step back, then another. If he’s careful he can retrace his steps, and get out of here without waking the beast that sleeps in the gloom beyond the range of his vision. He just has to be careful, he -

The heel of his bad leg comes down on something before he makes it even six feet, some gaudy bauble he missed before. It rolls and twists beneath his foot, wrenching Jason’s leg with it, and he can’t quite contain his cry of pain as he falls, landing awkwardly on his elbows against a river of silver coins. The candle falls and flickers with him, its flame dying before it even hits the ground.

Jason drops the sceptre as he claps his hands across his mouth, trying to stifle the sound. But it’s already too late. Blue illuminates the air not thirty feet away from him as Kon-El opens his eyes, and Jason remembers that black sliver of a pupil with terrifying clarity from the last time they met.

Quickly, he attempts to drag himself back by his elbows. Thinking that there’s still a chance he might hide in the darkness, but then the ground shakes, heavy footfalls loosening the piles of coins around him so they spill downwards like sand off desert dunes. Jason’s eyes hurt as light suddenly burns across the air above him, an arc of red flame that lights up the entire chamber - and Gods, it is _huge,_ bigger than his father’s hall back in Gotham City - before catching and lingering in heavy sconces on the walls.

Jason gets his first true look at Kon-El, up close, and far more personal than he’s sure he ever wanted.

He’s huge. Maybe fifty feet from nose to tail. A barrel shaped body sits atop four stocky legs, liquid black with a bright red underbelly, attached to a long sinuous neck and arrow shaped head capped with two curved horns and a frill of spikes beneath his heavy jaw. His eyes are brilliant, brilliant, blue. The same bright shade that Jason remembers from his nightmares, and his chest heaves as he scrambles back across the coins until he no longer can, the back of his head smacking into an open treasure chest behind him.

Wicked sulphur breath scours Jason’s skin when Kon-El’s head lowers, forwards and closer with every thunderous step, until his snout is mere inches away from his chest. Teeth the size of Jason’s forearms are revealed as his jaws part, and slit nostrils twitch above them. The dragon sniffs him like a dog would a stranger. Like a wolf sensing prey.

Closing his eyes, Jason waits with uneasy anticipation - for death, perhaps, despite Tim’s given word that Kon-El will not harm him now that he knows Jason does not wish to steal Tim away from him. He promised, but when facing down something so powerful, so dangerous, without armour or adequate weaponry, fear still rules over all.

But it doesn’t come. No sharp teeth pierce his flesh. No inferno roasts his bones. The hot bellowing air of the beast’s breathing stops, replaced by strange sounds like the cracking and creaking of a tree’s boughs in the middle of a winter storm. The next thing Jason feels is not pain, but a warm dry hand cupping his face and sliding back into his hair, between his skull and the hard wood of the chest behind it.

“Jason?”

He opens his eyes. Conner is knelt before him, looking back with open concern. The flickering light from the sconces paints patterns across his naked skin. And while Jason’s eyes widen at his appearance, Conner himself seems complete unconcerned with his own nudity.

Yet once over the shock of that, it is Conner’s eyes that arrest Jason most of all. That same brilliant blue that haunts his more pleasurable dreams, but with the slit pupils of the eyes that haunted their more unpleasant kin.

They’re the same shade. He knew. He always knew.

“It’s you…” he says, softly at first, then louder. Harder. “It’s you. _You’re_ the dragon. You’re Kon-El, I _knew_ something was-”

Conner… Kon-El, nods at his revelation. Only looking mildly perturbed rather than angry. There is no denying it, not with those eyes and the hoard now suspiciously empty of any dragon. “Are you hurt?”

Jason laughs, short and sharp, incredulous at the question, as he reels still from the confirmation of his impossible suspicions. But he quickly stops when Kon-El’s other hand touches his knee, then goes lower to his calf and the splint beneath the fabric of his breeches. The touch is achingly gently, carefully exploring the length of his leg to make sure the splint hasn’t snapped from his fall.

“It… it’s fine.” Is all he can say at first, dazed by the sudden contrast of danger in the face of a dragon, to the feeling of safety and comfort he has subconsciously come to associate with the man in front of him. The man who is that same creature that almost killed him before. “You don’t have to…” he stops, trying to work himself back to the subject at hand. “You’re a _dragon_.”

Amusement, coupled with apprehension. Not on Kon-El’s face, which mostly communicates continued concern, but at the back of Jason’s mind. One of those strange moments of intuition that he’s suffered more and more the longer he’s lingered in the tower. He nods, but says nothing further.

“The fuck.” Jason says, trying not to focus on the hand lingering on his leg. The grip still gentle, but edging towards something different as Kon-El’s fingers tighten around his ankle. “I didn’t… dragon’s can turn human?”

“Some of us. It’s not a skill we share with many.” Kon replies, the amusement clearer than ever.

Jason doesn’t share his humour. “Why?!” He finds himself demanding, “Why hide it from me? Why -”

Kon-El tilts his head, quick and sharp in a familiar way that now has a revealed reptilian quality as his other hand drops from Jason’s face to his thigh. It is difficult to ignore the fact that he is naked as a newborn in front of him with each touch, yet Jason persists to do just that, averting his eyes from travelling any lower than his face. He’s seen him naked before in the bath, and this occasion should be no different from then.

No different, yet different in every way.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Jason.” Kon says, instead of answering his question. There’s no amusement now, only deadly seriousness. His hands are large and warm on Jason’s legs. His entire body radiating heat between them. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Jason retorts sharply, “Why did you hide it from me? Why did _both_ of you do it? I gave Tim my word that I’d -”

“Listen to me, and not force me to go anywhere with you against my will.” 

Jason starts once more, unsure of how many more shocks his heart can take in one night as Tim, dressed down to his undergarments, hurriedly approaches them on bare feet through the dunes of gold, the last green remnants of magic clinging to his limbs before fading away. His eyes are dark and underlined with sleep, his hair a thicket that Jason at once wants to run his fingers through and smooth over. He tenses further beneath Kon’s hands as Tim drops to the ground to kneel beside him. “Jason -”

“What in the nine hells...” he whispers, then louder, “How did you get down here so fast?”

“Teleportation spell.” Tim answers at once, as if it was obvious. “It works best when I know the place where I’m going. Or have someone familiar to lock onto.” He meets Kon’s eyes, communicating words Jason’s sure, no doubt in the same manner by which Kon-El woke him from their bed and summoned him down to the hoard below. It’s like a whispered conversation held just out of the range of his hearing, and Jason curls his fingers around a few stray coins at the niggling sensation.

“Was that not good enough?” he asks angrily, jumping back to what he and Kon were talking about before. “You bound my word to your magic.”

“But again, only to listen, and not force me from my home.” Tim says softly. Unlike Kon-El, he does not immediately reach to touch him. “We made no agreement about anything else. That is why we didn’t share this secret with you, though we wanted to. We had to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” Jason asks, sharply in contrast. When Tim hesitates he says again, “Of _what_?”

They exchange another look. Now that Tim is here, Kon-el seems content to let him take the lead, and so it is he who once again speaks, finally giving Jason his answer. “You are the son of a powerful lord, Jason. And even were you not, your words in the right ears could bring an army to our doorstep, no matter your intention. You came here seeking to kill Kon-El, like many others before you, and many more would seek out his hoard still, or Kon himself in the name of honour with the knowledge he can be caught in a more vulnerable form. So we had to be sure we could trust you not to share this knowledge before you learned the truth, without the coercion of my magic to hold you in place.”

With those words he understands their motivation. Yet still the knowledge stings. 

“I wouldn’t.” Jason says at once, with a fervour that surprises him. “I wouldn’t do that to you, either of you.” His eyes pass between them. “I don’t care what you are, so long as you don’t mean me or anyone else harm.”

Kon’s fingers tighten on both his ankle and his thigh, reminding Jason of their presence. “We don’t. Far from it, we want -”

“Kon.” Tim says sharply, cutting him off, but too late.

“What?” Jason asks, with narrowed eyes. He’s had enough of lies and half-truths. “What do you want?”

The question becomes permission for the dragon, who ignores his lover’s attempt at caution. His eyes glitter, alien and beastial, like the jewels he chooses to surround himself with. “ _You_. We want you.”

Jason’s heart catches in his throat. He’s not sure he’s heard that right. “Excuse me?”

Tim sighs softly, but then his hand is touching the back of Jason’s, a fair lighter touch that Kon’s possessive grip. “He means that we want you to stay with us, Jason. We were going to ask you when the time was right, the same as we were going to tell you Kon’s secret.”

“I know what I meant, Tim.” Kon grumbles, but his gaze doesn’t waver. His nakedness becomes apparent once again as he shifts closer, from sitting by Jason’s feet to his side, opposite of Tim. Heat lingers on Jason’s legs even after his hands leave him. “We want you.”

There’s no mistaking the words, or the feeling behind them. Clarity comes to Jason in a strange burst; emotions his but not his stirring inside his stomach.

“We’re sorry for the deception, Jason.” Tim picks up when he says nothing, “We didn’t enjoy it. But we are not lying now, believe that. Any answers you want of us, we’ll give.”

“I do.” he says, around his clumsy tongue. “I… know you’re not. I don’t know how but…” The question surges forwards, “How do I know? Tell me that. Tell me why I can feel you both. I have no magic, I never have, but since I’ve been here I… I keep feelings things. Emotions. I knew you were hiding something. That’s why I came down here. I had to know what it was.”

Kon-El shifts, the impression of a coiled serpent beneath his human features does not go unnoticed as Tim looks down, then inhales deeply before launching into an explanation.

“It’s not magic. Or… well, no, it is. But not the kind of your own making.” Tim picks up a coin, and with ease starts to roll it across his knuckles. The gold flashes prettily in the firelight. “Do you recall how I saved your life when you fell from the tower?”

Jason nods, of course he remembers. The fall that should have killed him, made non-lethal by Tim’s magic.

“The truth is… the truth is that it wasn’t quite as clean as I made it sound.” Tim hesitates, worry audible in his voice. Worry for how Jason will take this news. While beside him a slow crawl of guilt emanates from Kon. “I slowed your fall, but you still hit the ground hard. It was the shock, I think, that was worse than the impact. I got to you as quickly as I could, but you had already stopped breathing. I could feel the life leaving you…”

_Like a bird trying to escape its cage. Fluttering against his ribs. Wanting to fly free._

“... and I had no choice. There was a spell I knew. I found it many years ago and memorised it, but I’d never used it before. It tethers a soul back to the body.” Tim licks his lips. “It saved your life, but the magic had a price I didn’t anticipate, and there were unforeseen consequences between us.”

Jason is barely paying attention. He is caught on the fact that he was _dead_. Just for a moment, but dead all the same. Dancing within the icy grasp of the Death God for a third time.

Worse than the time he almost fell to his death from the castle walls as boy. Worse than when -

_In the market with his brother only four years before, bored on a sunny afternoon free of training or study while their father entertained some visiting dignitaries, presenting a perfect opportunity for the two lord’s sons to roam the city._

_Dick led the way, as always, while Jason followed in his wake, content to buoyed along by his brother’s enthusiasm for life and the people House Wayne ruled over. He stopped to examine a stall, filled with animals in cages brought from an exotic land, while Jason lingered a short distance away. Which is why he saw the assassin first. A seemingly ordinary citizen with a dagger in hand stepping up behind his brother._

_He doesn’t remember clearly what happened next. Only the fear for Dick’s life driving him forwards. Then there was blood running down his face from the cut that laced back across his scalp, and more still from the hole in his abdomen when he hit the ground._

_He remembers Dick cradling him in his arms, the terror in his face as he called his name. People screaming in the marketplace around them. Shouting. “Jason! Jason!”_

“- Jason?”

He comes back to the present. To the feeling of Tim’s slender fingers entwined tightly with his own, while Kon-El’s strong hand grips his shoulder. 

Jason swallows thickly, forcing out a nod. “I’m fine. I just… I died. I…” he lifts his own hands, pressing his fingers against his temples for a moment. “ _Fuck_ , I died.”

Tim says nothing at first. But then his eyes lift, just for a moment, to the white streak in Jason’s hair. Sprouting out from the twisted old scar like a withered leaf from a poisoned vine.

Jason never told Tim about how he came to have the mark, though he’d asked more than once over the past month. He doesn’t like to remember any of his near-death experiences, even if that one had been in the name of saving his brother’s life. They’d never discovered where the assassin came from or who he worked for, as he killed himself in the cells that very night. But Bruce had his suspicions when Talia arrived at the castle gates with Damian the following year, meaning to set her son at the head of the line of inheritance.

“You’re alive now, Jason.” Tim reaches up with his other hand, his fingers gracing the skin of his cheek. “You’re alive, and it won’t happen again.”

“It won’t happen again.” Kon says in heated agreement, a growl that sounds more animal than human emerging from his throat. “Never.”

Jason almost laughs. “You can’t promise that. No one can. Everyone dies eventually.”

“I can.” The dragon says, with that same heat as before. His body is like a furnace against Jason’s. “You won’t die, not by another’s hand. It’s done, you’re alive. I made a mistake harming you before. I won’t do it again, and I won’t allow anyone else to do it either.”

Heat blooms in Jason’s cheeks. He sits up straighter, uncomfortable at being the focus of their attention. Not knowing what to make of their focused intent upon him in the first place. “You said there were consequences.” he says, in an attempt to get back on track, even though the ghostly and ill-remembered sensation of falling continues to run up and down his spine.

“Yes. The spell, it...” Tim licks his lips. “It bound you back to your body, but it also bound us together. Me and you. Powerful magic always comes with a price. And since Kon and I are bound in our own way you also came to share that bond. We are connected now, all three of us.”

“What the fuck. You… and you didn’t think that was something I should know?!” Jason stares. “Is that why -”

“No.” Kon-El replies, perhaps sensing what he meant to ask: if that’s why they want him. Because of some unforeseen consequence of saving his life. They’re bonded, and Jason can’t help but wonder what effect that has on their feelings towards him, and his towards them. 

“We want you, because you are you. And we know you want us too.” Tim fills in. “If you can sense our feelings then you must know the sincerity of them, Jason.”

Kon-El nods vigorously. “I would kill any intruder who dared enter my hoard without my permission otherwise. You are wanted here in every way that matters.”

“This is insane. This…” Jason swallows hard, looking between them. He feels the heat of the want on both sides, and the coil of it where it has been festering in his own belly for weeks, waiting for a spark to ignite. “You both…”

“We both.” 

He looks from one to the other. “I had dreams.”

“Did you?” Tim smiles now, a small coy thing at the corners of his mouth.

“You know I did.” Jason mumbles back, blood rushing to his face in an even deeper shade. Burning the tips of his ears as sure as dragonfire. “You _know._ ”

“You enjoyed them.” Tim’s fingers squeeze his, then slide free, trailing over the back of his wrist and higher, pushing up his sleeve to expose his forearm. “Didn’t you?”

Jason squirms, his back pressed to the firm wood of the chest, coins digging into his thighs. His breeches begin to feel uncomfortable tight. “Do I have to answer that?”

Kon’s hand holds tight to his shoulder. “We can show you something better than dreams, if you stay with us.” his gaze is pure avarice over a cocky smile, looking at Jason like he is treasure as much as the heaps of gold and jewels around them, rather than just a poor knight who chose to leave his father’s hall for the comfort of nights spent under hedgerows and the sides of dirt roads. He grips Jason’s thigh again, higher this time, with his other hand.

The restrained strength behind that grip is something else, knowing that he really does have the power to crush bone into powder.

“Are you really so sure you want me?”

“I think we’re all old enough to know what we want here, Jason.” Tim’s smile is a mischievous thing. “Just say the word. It is your choice, now and always.”

Jason looks to them both. Kon-El, handsome, alien and powerful, contrastingly gentle and fierce in his loyalty. Tim, smaller, beautiful, his hair a tangled mess even as his eyes are bright and alert with insatiable intelligence in his pale face.

Both of them incredible, and both looking at him with open desire. It doesn’t seem possible, but he can’t deny that or what he feels in his heart. He doesn’t even have to say the words out loud, they _know_.

Hunger sweeps through him as Tim’s slender hand touches his face, turning his head by his jaw to face him. Jason’s eyes fall shut as he draws near, and the first tender press of his mouth against his is sweeter than honey wine. He kisses back, returning the pressure, the glide of their lips together, and sighs at the first brief lap of tongue, encouraging him to part his lips.

He does, and Tim’s tongue is quick to slide into his, taking a sudden control in the kiss that Jason does not expect, yet is nonetheless thrilled by. His hand finds Tim’s hip and uses the hold to drag him closer, so that the smaller man is very much on his lap. They kiss until they are breathless, until they cannot help but part for air.

Then Jason gives into his earlier urge, sweeping his hands through Tim’s hair to smooth down its unruliness. Tangling in the softness of the dark locks. 

But the respite is momentary, as Tim smiles at him, flushed and eager, a second before a dark and thunderous growl sounds in Jason’s ear. Kon is more openly forceful as he drags Jason’s head round to face him, more obviously eager as his warm lips shove against Jason’s own.

Jason feels like he’s being burned alive from the inside out when Kon kisses him. It’s a kiss like no other he’s ever known, and before he realises it he’s pulling, _clawing_ at Kon as he returns it with more brute force than finesse, matching the dragon touch for touch while Tim occupies his lap, leaning in and licking at his neck, hands sliding over Jason’s chest. Desperation fuels his every move. Desperation to connect, to feel, to assure himself this is real and to take what’s being offered to him freely.

It’s already more than he imagined, and they’re only just getting started.

“This isn’t the most comfortable place for this.” Tim murmurs, when Kon eventually pulls back from ravaging Jason’s mouth. He has the lacings of his nightshirt undone, and his thighs squeeze Jason’s when he moves to straddle him properly. “Kon?”

Jason can’t argue that, as precious metals dig into various parts of his body, but he’s unprepared for when Kon-El sudden slides one arm beneath his legs and curves the other around his waist, lifting both Tim and himself up from the ground and holding them in his arms as if they weigh no more than a feather. He remembers being held by him like this before, but the fact that Kon is now holding them both up is immeasurably thrilling, and his heart beats faster in response as he begins to carry them through the hoard closer to the center of the room.

Here there are riches that are not hard and cruel to fragile human bodies, but objects of wealth nonetheless. Rugs made of silk Jason recognises as coming from the far east. Material worth a fortune in its own right, and another flux of lust hits him as he realises why this setup exists in the hoard already. 

Tim laughs in his ear, offering unnecessary confirmation. “Kon likes to have me down here sometimes, so all that he cherishes is in one place.”

“I…” Words keep failing him, even as Kon sets them down on the ground together, more or less as they were before with Tim still in Jason’s lap. He’s careful with Jason only to the extent of not jarring his healing leg, sliding covetous hands across his body as soon as he’s on the ground.

“You like how strong he is, don’t you?” Tim asks him now, loud enough that surely Kon must hear. “You like how easily he handles you, a man as tall and strong as yourself.”

“So do you.” Jason bites back, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, though the words dry in his throat when Kon shifts behind him, his naked chest pressed to the length of Jason’s back - alongside other things.

“Talk later. Now you’re both wearing too many clothes.” The dragon growls hungry in his ear. The press of his hands suggests he is not above tearing those clothes to shreds if something is not done about the situation soon.

Tim rolls his eyes, “You’re always so impatient.” 

“Patience is for after. Now I want you both.” Kon shoves his hands up under Jason’s shirt. They feel like brands fresh out of the fire against his skin, and Jason wonders if tomorrow he’ll look in the mirror and find red handprints left against chest. He does not think he would mind very much if he did.

Tim rolls his hips down against Jason’s crotch, grinding his rear over the hard line of his thickened cock, as Kon turns his head to kiss him again, and this time when he pulls back Jason’s lips feel bruised, his body shaken as he jerks his hips upwards, his lungs _dry_ as if the very air has been burned out of them. “ _Fuck_. You both - I...”

Tim leans back, enough to bring his hands down and catch the hem of his nightshirt, drawing the fabric up and over his head. His body is as Jason imagined it, narrow and slender, unmarred but for the scar on his arm, but with lithe muscle that can’t be denied. An obvious contrast to Kon’s broader barrel chest and tree-trunk thick arms; the feel and sight of both against him make his mouth water.

“Your turn now, Ser Todd.” Tim smirks, tugging on Jason’s shirt, and Kon helps, pulling it up and over his head before tossing the fabric away. Jason’s own body is pale where the sun has not reached beneath his clothes, slightly darker where it did, and well marked with scars from a lifetime of fighting. The stab wound he received in his teens is an ugly pucker below his ribs, but there is no revulsion on either of their faces when they look at him, only intrigue. And desire.

“One day,” Tim says, tracing a line that runs across his right pec, close by his nipple, “I want you to tell me the story behind every single one of these scars.”

Jason can’t help but smile, “That’s a lot of stories to tell.”

“Good for you then, that we’ll have a lot of time to speak together.” Tim leans in close to kiss him, soft again in contrast to Kon’s roughness, before leaning over Jason’s shoulder to kiss his lover too. The hot wet sounds of their lips meeting in his ear are very distracting, as is the press of Kon’s erection against the small of his back when he presses in even closer to Jason. 

“Gods… you both…” He turns his head to watch, and the way they kiss is like sin itself. Heated and comfortable, with the ease of long practice. Jason shudders between them, holding tight to Tim’s waist as their hands run over his chest and along his flanks, caressing every inch of skin and leaving sparks in their wake.

“Kon wants to fuck you, Jason, he’s wanted it for weeks,” Tim whispers in his ear when they part. “And I want to watch him do that. Will you let me? Will you let me see that?”

Jason moans, his hips rolling up against Tim’s ass. His hands latch onto his waist. He wants him, he wants them both. He _wants._

“Yes.” He pants between the two of them as Kon’s mouth and teeth work on the arch of his neck, light at first, then biting down hard enough to bruise. “Yes. Gods, _please._ ”

They move as one, perfectly in-sync. Tim removes himself from Jason, gifting one last kiss to his lips before his fingers make short work of the laces of his breeches. Then he slips the short boots from Jason’s feet and Kon lifts him, making it easy for Tim to drag the breeches off Jason’s hips and down his legs, leaving him fully naked except for the bandaged splint tethered against his calf.

Jason shudders as Kon rolls him onto his back - again taking care not to jar his leg. But this time it’s Jason who initiates the kiss, reaching up and hooking a hand around the back of his thick neck, pulling him down insistently until Kon surrenders and gives him what he wants. Their mouths clash together as Kon slips easily between his legs and starts rutting against him, causing Jason to gasp and moan into his mouth.

He’s had more than enough glimpses of what’s between Kon’s legs tonight to know what to expect, but feeling that heavy cock slide against his still takes his breath away. He imagines what it will feel like inside him. The sweet promise of an end to weeks of pent up lust and frustration.

Kon groans in turn, perhaps picking up on some of what Jason is thinking. He tears his mouth away from his and goes back to his neck, kissing, licking, then finally driving sharp teeth into his vulnerable flesh. Jason yelps, survival instincts faltering as he bucks his hips up harder against Kon’s rather than trying to pull away. “Fuck!”

“Mine.” Kon rumbles against his throat. His hand finds Jason’s cock and jerks it steadily in time with his panting, “ _Mine_.”

And that… that declaration really shouldn’t flood Jason’s veins with lust the way it does.

Tim reappears above him, flushed and pretty. Jason was so distracted by what Kon’s doing that he didn’t even notice him leave. But now he licks his lips and kisses Jason lightly on the mouth, running his fingers through Kon’s short black hair as he continues to maul Jason’s neck. “You have no idea what you look like together…”

His eyes are huge and dark, like black pits. Jason swallows, “You… you should see yourself.”

Tim laughs, then a finger presses against his lips. He kisses Jason’s forehead, under where the white streak of hair grows. Jason reaches for him, but Tim ducks away, sliding like water from beneath his grasp. He catches a glimpse of a stoppered bottle in Tim’s other hand before he again vanishes from his line of sight.

They move in sync once more, Kon shifting from between his legs, though his hands keep Jason pinned down. One planted firmly in the middle of his chest, while the other strokes his cock as they kiss. Then other hands, Tim’s hands, slip between Jason’s thighs, wet and slick with oil from the bottle.

Slim his fingers might be, but they are long, and Jason’s breath stutters when Tim pushes the first into him. It has been many months since last he shared a bed with anyone, longer still since he let himself be taken. He focuses on kissing Kon, the hands that grip him so possessively, until there are three and then four knuckle-deep inside him. The discomfort eases and he moans as Tim presses against that place inside him that makes him writhe and gasp for more.

“Enough,” he gasps, pushing at Kon’s chest until he gets the message to let him talk, “That’s enough. I can… I can take it.”

The wave of lust that reverberates at his words almost has him coming there and then, and it’s only by a supreme amount of will that Jason holds back. He wants Kon in him first.

“Show me.” Tim says softly, breathlessly as he withdraws his fingers. “Show me, Jason. Kon…”

Kon kisses Jason once more in response, thrusting his tongue eagerly between his lips, then rolls him onto his right side before pressing up against his back. One thick arm curls beneath his chest, grasping his left wrist and trapping both his arms. The other grasps Jason’s left leg by the knee, above the break, and lifts it upwards and back. “Until I can have you on your hands and knees,” Kon whispers in his ear, in his mind with a potent image, “this position will do.”

“When that day comes, you may find it more of a challenge to get me on my knees.” Jason growls back, twisting his head back to nip at Kon’s jawline.

The dragon shudders and takes the challenge, kissing him hard as he rolls his hips forwards against Jason’s ass. He’s lost complete track of Tim again, but in truth - as Kon’s hand slides down his thigh to position his cock at Jason’s slick and ready hole - he’s not thinking very much of _Tim_ in this moment.

At least until Kon breaks the kiss, sliding all the way into him with one swift and ready thrust of his hips. Jason gasps, bows his head and closes his eyes, only to open them again when he withdraws and thrusts again without waiting. Then caught and pinned, shuddering on the sensation of Kon fucking into him, his eyes find Tim again.

He sits across from them like a prince, reclined against a seat of rolled up rugs and piled cushions before a backdrop of cascading silver and gold. Brushing one hand over his naked chest while he watches the two of them together. And once their eyes meet, Jason can’t look away, not even as Kon’s deep thrusts shake him down to his core.

He is held between the two of them, Tim’s heavy gaze and Kon’s body. Teeth tease his neck, a hand squeezes his thigh. A phantom touch traces over his stomach and up to his nipples, then down to his cock, communicated across the bond between them as Tim fondles himself. Jason moans and arches back, gripping the rug beneath him tight as he tries to move with Kon, and for the first time since he learned of its existence he pushes _back_ alongthat tether, wanting to share what he feels in return.

For a moment he’s not sure it will work. He has no natural talent for the mystical arts, after all, but then his doubts are put to rest, as Tim’s eyes widen and his hips suddenly jerk upwards off the ground, a heated flush taking over his face. “Oh!”

Kon laughs in Jason’s ear as he realises what he’s doing, licking a stripe up his now thoroughly mauled neck. “You learn quick.”

“I’ve… ah… been told it’s…” Jason bites his lip, another thrust almost knocking the words right out of him. “... one - one of my talents.”

“You could make him come.” Kon says, pressing their temples together. His breath gusts against Jason’s cheek like the heat from a furnace. “From here, like this, without even touching him.”

“ _Fuck._ I -”

“Do you want to?”

Right then and there, there is nothing more in the world Jason wants than to see Tim come undone before him. “Yes,” he pants, “Yes.”

“Good.” There’s a purr as Kon starts to move with a renewed vigour, and Jason feels him suddenly: his will, his power - centuries old and alien, beyond human understanding at its core - finding that connection between them. Finding it, and _wrenching_ it wide open.

The effect it has on Tim - on all of them - is startling.

Jason thinks he might have screamed, but he’s unsure. His mind is assaulted by _sensation_. By feeling on every side. The thickness of Kon’s cock thrusting into him, the hugeness of his hands holding him in place; of being taken, and at the same time, of _taking_. He feels it, rides it. A full circuit of pleasure that overwhelms all thought beyond base instinct. Tim’s surprise and ecstasy at the connection echoes back at him, as does Kon’s possessive need. His satisfaction at having both Tim and Jason together in this place: the very center of all that is dear to him.

Across from him, filling his vision, Tim bucks and arches back against his cushioned throne. Hips rolling, pushing back and up into nothing. The delicate bow of his back is gorgeous, the flex of his fingers and toes against the material intoxicating. His hair spills across his forehead and against his shoulders, the brush of a raven’s wing against his pale skin.

It’s too much for Jason. He’s never known anything like this before, and the dreams he’d experienced pale in comparison. There is nothing but _them_ , Tim and Kon, everywhere around him. His body, his mind, his soul. Taking and giving in equal measure until finally his world implodes and he comes, crying out so loudly that it echoes back around the walls of the treasure chamber.

Then he feels Tim, Kon. Feels them both as it takes them too, and overwhelmed, sinks gratefully into temporary oblivion.

*

When he eventually comes to again he is surrounded by warmth. Leant back against a surface both rough and smooth. Soft hair tickles his throat and chin, as a slender body lies atop his own. Tim’s fingers draw circles on his chest, leaving Jason to wonder where Kon-El might be.

When he opens his eyes he has his answer: _everywhere._

The dragon sleeps curled around them, circled nose to tail like a cat on a sunny step, his black hide reflecting back the torchlight that still burns to light the hoard. Gold flickers along every scale in an almost hypnotic pattern, including the crook of the heavy muscled leg in which Jason are Tim cradled.

Earlier Jason felt terror at the sight of Kon in his true form, but now that feeling is gone, replaced with one of comfort. Belonging. His anger and irritation at their deception is not entirely gone, and he still has so many questions about them that want answering, but for now he feels content. At peace. A feeling he has gone without for far too long.

“Hey,” Tim murmurs sleepily after a moment, catching his jaw with his fingertips as he lifts his head from Jason’s shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”

Jason swallows at the question. His throat still feels burnt dry from Kon’s kisses. “Good. I… I feel good. That was… intense, wow.”

Tim smiles, leaning in and kissing him softly. “You’ll get used to it, though hopefully not too much.”

He closes his eyes at the kiss, tilting his head and deepening it without thought. Tim’s lips part willingly, and for the next minute all they do is kiss lazily beneath the shadow of Kon’s wing before Jason draws back. “You’re that confident I’ll stay?”

“Won’t you?”

Reluctant to admit his own enthusiasm, Jason pretends to think it over, wondering how much of Tim’s confidence is from his insight into his thoughts and how much is wishful thinking. “... if I leave, will you go back to eating burnt food?”

Tim smiles indulgently. “Oh yes. If you leave, most assuredly.”

“And forget to sleep?”

“Definitely.”

“And live in squalor?”

“Every - hey! I am not that terrible.” Tim grumbles.

Jason’s lips twitch. “Then I suppose I must stay.”

The next kiss they share is just as soft and gentle. Tim caresses Jason’s cheek, then runs his fingers up to his brow, tracing his thumb across his eyebrow. “Good.” he murmurs, “For you know we would be bereft without you.”

Kon rumbles in his sleep, the sound deep enough to send vibrations through Jason’s chest as his tail shifts and knocks miniature landslides of gold into motion. Twin slivers of smoke slide upwards from his nostrils, rising towards the ceiling.

“He’s dreaming.”

Jason follows Tim’s gaze, watching as Kon continues to huff and twitch. “Reminds of a cat.”

“Really? I always thought of him more as an overly enthusiastic dog.” 

Jason chuckles, leaning his head atop Tim’s when he settled back down against his shoulder. It still feels unreal that he’s here, that he has them. “I can see that. What do you think it is he’s dreaming about?”

Tim shake his head. “You don’t need to ask me to know that, Jason.” He runs his thumb over the back of his hand where Jason has it hooked around his waist. “Only close your eyes and find out.”

Only hours ago Jason would have been sceptical of such advice, but now he simply does as he is bid, closing his eyes and opening his mind to the dragon’s thoughts.

Flying, it turns out. He’s dreaming of flying.


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, we're finally here at the epilogue of this story. Thanks so much to everyone whose stuck with me while I've been writing it (especially Skalidra, whose fault it is this became a Tim/Kon/Jason fic in the first place), and for all the kudos and comments <3 It's been a blast and I hope you all enjoy this last little bit of wrap up as much as you did the previous chapters.

“There’s someone outside the tower.” Tim announces one day.

He’s curled up by the open window, a heavy tome in his lap as he reads. On the opposite side of the room Jason is working steadily on darning some old shirts, fixing them up so that they can be worn a few more weeks before he ventures further afield than the nearby hamlets to buy them new clothing.

Roughly six months have passed since Jason discovered the truth about Tim and Kon. Six months of peace and contentment. Of easy living and loving partners. Tales told around the fire while the snow fell outside, and intimacy shared to fend off the cold. He’s learned more about Tim and Kon in that time, gained all the answers he needed to know that this is where he wants to belong, and though the urge to flee sometimes still rose in him - claustrophobic every time a storm raged outside - Jason’s still here, settled into a new life that has now come to feel like home just as much as the old one once did. Perhaps even moreso.

“What?”

“I said,” Tim says, craning his neck to look down over the edge of the window ledge, “There’s someone outside the tower. Two someones actually.” He pauses. “And now one of them’s following your example in climbing the wall. Doing a much better job of it than you did too.”

Jason drops shirt, needle and thread to one side, before jumping up from their bed to walk over to the window and take a look for himself. He squints down over the top of Tim’s head, squashing him in against the wall with his body and ignoring the shoving of a hand against his chest as Tim squawks in protest.

“Get off me, you lump!”

“Shh, Tiny Tim, I’m trying to look.”

Jason can make out two horses grazing at the edge of the clearing, and one man - a redhead dressed entirely in burgundy cloth - stands with a bow slung across his back and his arms folded across his chest, looking upwards while his companion scampers agiley up the tower wall. That second man is…

“Oh shit!”

“Jason?” Tim calls after him as Jason suddenly turns and runs from the room, out onto the spiral staircase to head down to the lower floors of the tower. “What is it? What’s going on?!”

“I’ll explain in a bit! Don’t let Kon do anything!” He yells back over his shoulder without stopping before clattering down the stairs.

How? is the main question question running through Jason’s head as he takes the steps two at a time. How did they find him? And why now? Why come searching for him after all this time? Has something happened? Something bad? He can feel his heart thumping hard in his chest from more than just exertion as he continues to hurtle forwards, grateful again that he no longer has to limp along with the help of a staff.

Finally Jason makes it down to the lowest floor of the tower that still has a window to lean out of - the same window he tried to reach several months before as a matter of fact. Just in time too, because as Tim pointed out Dick is a much more skilled climber than Jason is.

He runs to the window, unhooking the latch and throwing it open before Dick can reach for the ledge himself. The shock on his brother’s face would be funny under other circumstances, but right now Jason’s more worried about what might happen if he doesn’t stop him. Even now he can feel the curiosity and suspicion of both his lovers beating like restless wings at the inside of his skull. “Jason?!”

“Di…” Jason tries to say, wheezing, before he has to stop to gasp in air. Turns out he might have had too _much_ easy living if running down some stairs was enough to leave him out of breath. Wordlessly Jason extends his hand to Dick, who grasps it without hesitation and lets himself be pulled in through the window. “Dick -”

Dick hugs him before he can say anything more. He really shouldn’t be surprised, but the action still takes Jason’s breath away again. It’s been almost three years since they last saw each other, and he feels every minute of it in the stranglehold of Dick’s embrace. “Jason! Oh my Gods, you’re alive! I can’t believe - I missed you so much! I thought you were...”

Carefully Jason wraps his arms around Dick’s back, crushing him against his chest in return. “What? Of course I’m alive. I don’t - you thought I was dead?”

“No one’s seen or heard from you in months! What else were we supposed to think?” Dick pulls away, his hands come up to cup the sides of Jason’s face and draw their brows together. The way he would anytime Jason was upset or hurt as a boy, whispering reassurances and offering the boundless physical affection Bruce was incapable of. “The last news of you we could find was that you headed into this forest several months ago, and then the locals we met on the way out here were talking about a dragon and -”

“Dickie, Dick, I’m fine.” Jason interrupts him, pushing past the concerning fact that apparently his family have been keeping an eye on him from afar to provide reassurance. “See? I’m alive and I’m just fine.” He moves his hands up to grip his brother’s shoulders. “Nothing to worry about. I’ve just been staying here awhile. I met some people, good people, and - _ow_! What the shit?!”

Dick had pulled back and rapped him smartly on the side of the head with his knuckles while he was talking, “Well, I would have known that if you’d bothered to write home once in awhile!” he snaps, immune to Jason’s yelping. “Would it have killed you to send even a _single_ letter? Gods, Jason. It’s like you actually think we don’t care about you sometimes!”

“What - I don’t - of course I know you care. Dick, I -”

“Jason? Who’s this?” Tim’s voice interrupts their conversation, whether at the right or the wrong moment, Jason isn’t sure. He and Dick part swiftly, and he can feel the way his brother tenses as he examines the newcomer standing across the room.

Jason takes a step back, closer to Tim and conveniently in the middle of them both. “I uh, Dick this is Timothy Drake. Tim, this is my older brother, Richard Grayson, heir to House Wayne.”

He can feel Tim’s surprise, then amusement, in sharp contrast to his own guilt in the moment.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Tim says as he moves forwards, bare feet padding over the cool flagstones as he extends his hand towards dick. “And your archer friend down below is…?”

“The pleasure’s mine.” Dick says cautiously, taking Tim’s hand and shaking it. “And that’s Roy, Roy Harper. Who is, uh, probably getting ready to storm the keep considering how I got dragged in here a moment ago. Perhaps we should…?”

“Right. I can’t believe you brought Roy.” Jason mutters.

Dick snorts, “When I stopped by the City of Stars to ask him if he’d seen you of late and found that he hadn’t, he grew worried too. You know how he is, I couldn’t exactly stop him from accompanying me.”

Tim’s amusement grows. “What loyal friends and family you have, Jason.” He steps back from Dick and threads his arm through Jason’s in a marked gesture, which serves to make Dick’s eyebrows raise up towards his hairline. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and see if we can’t save you from any further embarrassment.”

“That is not your intention and you know it.” Jason complains, but he still allows Tim to lead him, trying not to let Dick see the pink blooms that blossom in his cheeks as a result. He hardly needs a soul bond to his brother in these circumstances to know what he’s thinking.

They head back to the stairs, this time with Dick following along behind them. He must have questions, but mercifully he holds them back until they reach the ground floor and Tim lets go of Jason to wave his hand at the hidden door.

This is his tower, his keep, and he alone does not need words to make it do what he wants (up to and including moving the floors around, as Jason had once discovered when he went to take a bath and tripped over a pile of discarded bird cages inside one of the storerooms instead).

They’re just in time too. As the door opens and they step outside, Kon emerges from the forest in his human guise, but that doesn’t stop Roy from whipping the bow off his back and pointing an arrow at him.

“Roy, wait!” Jason barks quickly, running forwards from the door to his friend and jumping over a furrow of claw marks Kon left in the ground there previously. “It’s okay, he’s a friend!”

“A friend?!” Roy says incredulously, not letting his arrow slip from where it’s pointed at Kon’s heart. “He’s a _dragon_.”

_That’s_ when Jason remembers that Roy is elven blooded. _That’s_ when he remembers that elves have an annoying ability to see through magical disguises, illusionary or otherwise; an ability Roy had inherited despite being two generations removed from his fae ancestor.

Gods curse trigger happy friends.

“I know! Just put your bow down and I’ll explain everything!”

“What do you mean you _know_?! How are you going to - yeouch!”

Roy shrieks as the arrow he’d set to the string suddenly bursts into flame. Jason whirls around, not needing any evidence to know the culprit. “ _TIM!_ ”

“He was going to shoot Kon.” Tim replies, hands still lifted in the final sign of his fire spell. He looks unrepentant, jaw sharply jutted out as he purses his lips. Meanwhile Dick has put some distance between them, his hands reaching for the long knives he keeps belted at his hips.

“He was not going to -” Jason’s getting a headache, which is only worsened when Kon himself starts to advance menacingly on Roy. “Okay! Okay! Everyone just calm the _fuck_ down!”

The whole group freezes at his yell, and suddenly all eyes are on Jason as he tries to somehow be in the middle of everyone before things can escalate any further. He uses the bond to his two lovers to demand their attention, and hopes that his brother and Roy still trust him enough to listen as well.

“Look, I can explain. Yes Roy, _everything_.” he snaps, as Roy starts to raise his hand. “I just need you and Dick to listen to me, all right?”

They exchange a look between them, holding a silent conversation with their eyes before Roy bows his head to Dick, indicating he’ll hold to his judgement of the situation, whatever that may be. Dick seems to think on it a moment longer before finally nodding.

“All right, Jason.” He says, not without caution. “We’ll listen.”

“Tim, Kon.” Jason looks between the two on opposite ends of the clearing. “Can I have some time alone with my brother and idiot friend, please?”

Kon prowls round Roy, giving him an unmistakably predatory look before moving to Tim’s side. He’s no longer bothering to hide the reptilian slits of his eyes, or his sharpened teeth as Tim reaches to take his hand, questing softly at Jason’s mind until Jason sends another wave of assurance at them both. _I’ll be fine._

“As you wish.” Tim says, not sounding completely happy with the situation still. “Call us if you need us.” He has to pull Kon along after him, the dragon dragging his feet the entire way until they’re both back inside the tower. The door remains pointedly open behind them.

Jason barely has time to take in a relieved breath before Roy’s jumping on him.

“What in all the hells, Jay!” Roy crushes him in against his chest, before stepping back and giving Jason a slap on the back. “Good to see you’re not dead, but really, what in all the hells.”

“Is it true what Roy said, Jason?” Dick asks, coming up close on his other side. “Is that man really a dragon?”

“Hey, I know what my eyes -”

“Yes.” Jason has no choice but to admit. “He is. It’s… something of a long story.”

Dick is serious now; the older brother, the heir to the seat of Wayne Jason remembers most standing at Bruce’s side, listening to the petitions of noble and humble folk alike. “It doesn’t matter how long it is, we have the time to hear it.”

“Damn right, we do.”

“Fine, fine.” Jason knows there’s no getting out of this one, not without resorting to methods that are unthinkable when applied to the two men in front of him. “Let’s go sit down and I swear I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

He leads them over to the treeline, where Dick and Roy’s horses are nervously grazing, no doubt made uneasy by the prevalent smell of dragon in the area. The air is still cool out, but a bout of early spring sunshine the last few days has left grass dry and not at all unpleasant to sit on. All three make themselves comfortable beneath the trees before Dick and Roy look expectantly towards Jason and he has no choice but to begin his tale.

An edited version of his tale, to be true. Jason tells them most of the truth, but he leaves out the parts about the soulbond and the fact that the three of them became lovers after he discovered Kon-El’s hoard. There’s some things you just don’t need to share with your brother, even if Dick might already have some suspicions considering Tim’s earlier behaviour towards him. He also glosses over the exact location of Kon’s hoard, because even if he trusts the two men in front of him it’s not his secret to tell.

“And you couldn’t have written to let us know any of this before.” Dick says again, dry and pointed as he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“You scared the crap out of us, Jaybird.” Roy adds, nodding along.

Jason looks down at his lap, staring intently at his scarred and calloused hands. “In my defence, I didn’t know you were keeping track of me to know I was missing in the first place.”

“Of course we were. You’re family, and even if you needed your space, we still wanted to know how you were doing.” Dick says. His unhappiness is an open wound, one that’s painful to look at, “So we kept our distance, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t ask for news of you from our friends in other places whenever we could get it.”

“I might have sent a letter now and then.” Roy admits, scratching the back of his head. “Every time you stopped by, as a matter of fact.”

“So you can see why, after over seven months without any news of you, we were worried.” Dick says firmly.

Jason fights a war within himself. Part of him is indignant that his attempt to be independent was watched over after all. Another is taken back by the expression of love and concern it breeds in turn. As much as he’d felt suffocated and trapped back in Gotham in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, between Bruce’s overprotective control and Damian’s timely arrival, he’d never doubted that his family - or at least Dick - loved him. He’d just needed to get out, get out for a while and be _himself_ , prove that he didn’t need to be held back. Then months had stretched to years and he’d just kept going. Going and going until finally he found a place to stop.

People to make him stop.

“I’m sorry.” Is all he can say in the end. A statement that is heartfelt, if not repentant in every way.

For a moment Jason thinks that it won’t be good enough, and that Dick’s ire at him will continue, but then his brother sighs and relaxes his shoulders before shaking his head with a tired smile. “I thought we agreed you were done giving me heart attacks, little wing.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault we’re both magnets for trouble.” He risks a smile back.

“Among other things.” Roy chimes in.

“So you’re really okay?”

“Really really.” Jason assures them, “I’m all healed up from my fall and taking it easy for a change.”

“And them? These two people you’re living with-”

“The pretty mage and the lizard in disguise.”

“- you’re sure about them too?” Dick continues as if Roy hadn’t spoken.

“I am.” Jason replies, “They’re good people. So long as they’re not being threatened, that is. You’ll see what I mean if you just come inside and speak to them yourselves.”

Roy snorts, but then shakes his head before looking at Dick. “Doesn’t look like he’s under any bewitchment to me. I’m game if you are.”

“If Jason says we can trust them, we can trust them.” Dick says staunchly, climbing to his feet. “Come on, little brother,” his lips turn up into a smile, “let’s go meet your friends properly.”

 

*

 

It doesn’t go terribly, considering the nature of their initial introduction.

Sure, Kon looks at Roy like he’s still considering eating him half the time, but after the first awkward half hour everyone calms down and makes a real effort to get to know one another. Dick breaks the ice first by asking Tim and Kon about their lives, before moving on to telling them embarrassing childhood stories about the things he and Jason got up to when they were younger when it becomes clear that they’re still wary of him.

Dick always, _always_ seems to know how to get through to people, with a skill Jason had always envied whenever his own awkwardness made him tongue tied and recalcitrant. In this case he does it by using their mutual connection to Jason, and it’s only a little annoying that he can hear his lovers’ laughter inside and out with every recited incident. Mostly Jason’s just relieved they’re getting on at all. He doesn’t know what he’d do if the most important people in the world to him all hated each other.

While they talk, he makes dinner, and then eventually pulls out the bottles of nettle wine he brewed and set to mature back in the autumn out of the cold storage room. By now it’s grown quite the flavour, and the introduction of alcohol helps soothe over any remaining sore nerves between the five of them.

One downside he didn’t anticipate however, is the way in which it also relaxes his lovers enough that they can’t stop being handsy with him - not that they were trying to behave in the first place. The moment they came inside Tim glued himself to Jason’s side, and Kon quickly took the other. And now after multiple brushes of hands against his arms and shoulders - and a possessive arm around his waist in Kon’s case - there’s no doubt that Dick and Roy have figured them out completely.

A fact that comes more apparent later on when he crosses to the window away from the group - where Roy and Tim have got into a heated debate about the mechanics of spell arrows while Kon watches amusedly from the sidelines - for a breath of fresh air and Dick follows after him, intent on taking the opportunity to have a quiet word with Jason alone.

“So, you were right.” His brother begins once they’re settled next to each other. He nudges his hip against Jason’s as they look out across the forest canopy. “They do seem like good people.”

“They are.” Jason agrees, then swallows anxiously as he watches Dick out of the corner of his eye. “More than I could have ever have asked for.”

“They make you happy?”

Jason nods. Happy seems so inadequate a term for how Tim and Kon make him feel, but it’s the best one he’s got, which is why it’s so important to him that Dick accepts them. “Yeah, they do.”

Dick reaches up, smiling as he squeezes his shoulder. “Then I’m glad you met them, Jason. You don’t know how good it is to see you smiling again.”

Relief courses through his veins at those words, but it’s weighed down by a renewed sense of guilt. Jason looks down as he confesses, “I really didn’t mean to be gone so long, you know. Honestly, I didn’t. At least not at first. But the further I went the harder it became to stop. There was always more to see, more to do; more people to help. So I just kept going and going… until I found this place, and them.”

“Jason…. look, I… I may not completely understand your reasons for leaving when you did, but it’s forgiven now. You’re alive and you’re happy, that’s what matters to me.” Dick smiles reassuringly, shaking his head to dismiss Jason’s attempted apology before he nudges him again. “Though I suppose this means I won’t be able to convince you to come home with me now.”

“No. Not… not now.” Jason clears his throat, looking back over his shoulder a moment.

“But someday?”

“Someday, maybe.” he can’t say no completely, not to Dick. And as much as he once needed to get away, Gotham is still a part of him. His _family_ is still a part of him. But he worries that returning there will mean leaving Tim and Kon behind him when he does. “To visit at least.”

“You should bring them with you if they’ll come.” Dick says, guessing the source of his hesitation. “I think Bruce would be interested in meeting your new… ‘companions’.”

Jason shoves him, causing Dick to spill his wine as he bursts out into peals of laughter. “I don’t know about that, but I do hope that you will call them my _companions_ when you report this back to him. And leave out the part about Kon being a dragon too, if you don’t mind.”

He’s not ashamed of being in a relationship with Kon, but once again the secret of his true nature is not Jason’s to tell. Not Dick’s or Roy’s either. If they hadn’t discovered the truth the way they had Jason would have kept it hidden from them as well.

“If that’s what you want, then I understand.” Dick reaches and squeezes his arm. “I promise I’ll keep their secrets and yours until you’re ready to tell Bruce yourself. Just so long as you promise to consider visiting us soon in return.”

Jason does his best to hide his relief before he bows his head in agreement. “Yeah, all right. I swear I’ll think about it. Thank you.”

They stand in companionable silence for a few moments after that, until Jason decides to ask Dick a question of his own, “So how’s the demon brat? Still trying to steal Selina’s cats away from her?”

“Growing like a weed.” Dick says happily, “And no, they reached a ceasefire shortly after you left. Damian has his own pets now. Bruce was very relieved.”

“Torn between his son and his paramour, I’m sure he was.”

Never one to miss an opportunity, Dick launches into the story. A tale which leaves Jason bent over with laughter by the time he’s done. He then goes on to talk about how Alfred’s doing, and fills Jason in on all the current details of life in Gotham and the halls of Castle Wayne that he’d neglected to bring up in front of Tim and Kon earlier. They talk for over an hour, just the two of them, before the onset of true night spurs them to return back to the group, where they finish their wine and the last of the food. Then Jason shows his brother and Roy to one of the empty bedrooms to sleep.

Only after he’s sure they’re settled does he finally climb back upstairs to join his lovers.

Tim and Kon are already in bed by the time Jason reaches them. A single solitary candle has been left burning in the room for him, but Jason blows it out before he sits down on the edge of the bed and slowly starts to strip off his outer clothing. He feels exhausted suddenly by everything that’s happened today, a feeling that’s exacerbated by the alcohol he’s consumed, and he only barely manages to finish working his breeches off before Kon grows impatient enough to reach out and grab Jason by the wrist to haul him into bed.

“So,” Tim says, once they’ve finished wriggling around and settling themselves into a position everyone finds comfortable. Tonight Jason’s the one who ends up the middle, with Tim’s leg pressed between both of his own and Kon’s arm slung possessively across his chest. “ask us.”

“Ask you what?”

Tim pinches his nipple while Kon huffs against his neck, “What your brother wanted you to ask us. About going back to Gotham.”

“You two need to learn the meaning of privacy.” Jason complains, before sighing. “Would you consider it, truly?”

“If you want to go, of course we would.” Tim nods, assurance and affection filtering down their bond. “We know what it means to you. What your family means to you. You’ve made that plain over the last few months.”

“Just so long as no one tries to shoot at me. And we’re not gone too long.” Kon adds.

_Gold_ fills his thoughts, and Jason’s not surprised. Leaving his hoard for more than a few days at a time is difficult for Kon, and Gotham is many more leagues away from the tower than the usual locations he frequents when he goes to stretch his wings.

“No one will harm you there.” Jason promises him. “Not while you’re one of my father’s guests. If they try they’ll suffer the consequences, the same as any other criminal would.”

“Then it’s up to you, Jason. Just let us know when you’re ready.” Tim kisses his chest, before settling down to sleep with his head positioned over Jason’s heart. “Your brother and friend are welcome to stay a while longer if you want them to, by the way. They’re quite entertaining to have around.”

“I still hate elves though.” Kon mutters, not quite so enamoured (and the story about why he doesn’t like elves in the first place is one Jason will have to remember to ask him tomorrow), but then he kisses Jason too - this time on the lips - before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

Jason stays awake a little longer, even though their slumbering consciousnesses tug at him to join them. He thinks of Gotham far away by the sea; of Bruce, Alfred and Damian, and the two men now asleep many floors below them: his brother and best friend. More importantly, Jason thinks of Kon and Tim sleeping beside him; the ones who own his heart. First by accident, then by choice.

Someday he’ll go back to the city of his birth, he decides. But in this moment? He’s happy to continue staying right here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kon hates ~~monkeys~~ elves.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Heart of the Hoard [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14147508) by [Rioreader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rioreader/pseuds/Rioreader)




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